Brazen (B-Squad #1) (13 page)

It was late in the twelfth round and an imaginary ref circled him. He had to finish the fight before the brawler landed a knockout punch that had him eating stone.

Gathering ever last bit of strength, Taz crashed his fist into the other man’s jaw. Spit, blood and two teeth went flying as the man went timber, out cold before he hit the stone path.

Knuckles aching, body bruised, mouth bleeding and lungs heaving, Taz prepped for the next attack.

It never came.

Weaving more than a bit, he did a three-sixty as fear poisoned his gut. Besides the five unconscious men littering the stone path, there wasn’t anyone else around. Each of the four paths leading off from the scene was as silent and still as an abandoned city.

They were gone.

Bianca was gone.

In half a heartbeat, all of his aches and pains evaporated. He spit out a mouthful of blood and started running toward the rendezvous point where the team and all their firepower would be waiting.

Even if Yasmin had everything in place for a quick disappearance, she wasn’t going to make it off this island. No matter what it took, no matter what he had to sacrifice, he would save Bianca.

T
he floor rocked
under Taz’s bare feet and his stomach pitched adding to his already black-as-midnight mood. God, he fucking
hated
boats—especially when he was being forced to cool his heels on the Sutherland family yacht, waiting for the DEA agents to arrive while Bianca was still out there.

“Fucking DEA,” he mumbled.

Blackfish promised he’d be on the beach with his agents in ten minutes. Taz wasn’t giving him a second more.

“Take this.” Vivi held out her hand, holding two small pills. “You look like you’re about to puke, and these,” she pointed down to her combat boots, “are brand-new.”

The former DEA agent was always such a touchy-feely one. Considering two of her best friends were being held hostage, she could come off as a cold-hearted bitch. But look a little closer and it was easy to spot her tells. The chewed up bottom lip. The strands of loose hair freed from her normally perfectly tied-back hair. And—most obvious—the way she’d failed to nail Keir to the wall with a snarky comment the moment he walked into the yacht’s makeshift command center.

Not that he had room to talk. He was so hyped-up right now, itching to use whatever firepower was at his disposal to get to Bianca. If only he could, but he needed Blackfish’s agents to ensure Bianca and Gidget made it out alive. Yasmin was expecting everyone from the B-Squad but she wasn’t expecting the DEA, and they needed every advantage they could get while Bianca’s life hung in the balance. One of the agents would make the perfect distraction to get them in the door.

He swiped the motion-sickness pills from Vivi’s palm and downed them dry. “Where are we on the background on Yasmin?”

“Done,” Duke said before slipping his phone back in his pocket. He’d been working his contacts since the team had seen shit go sideways on the surveillance feed. “Yasmin Romanow is wanted by a whole slew of alphabet agencies across the globe. She is the only child of Yanni Romanow, a low-level money manager for a group of Armenian gangsters based on the East Coast. St. Bernadette’s, which young Yasmin attended, was a front for laundering the dirty money. The school administrators were all getting a cut of the cash, which would explain her ties to Walsh. No one had ever done much digging into the school because all the rich people who sent their daughters there were mainly doing so just to get them out of their hair.” He glanced up at Lexie, Vivi and Elisa. “No offense.”

“None taken.” Lexie shrugged. “It was either St. B’s or juvie for a very long time after the whole Pentagon thing, so it was a good trade for me.”

Elisa peeked over Lexie’s shoulder at the image of Yasmin on her laptop. “I don’t remember this chick at all, do you guys?”

The other women shook their heads.

Duke went on. “That’s because she dropped off the grid after a trip to a cosmetic surgeon in Brazil who specialized in facial reconstruction when she was eighteen—exactly three days after her father was killed in police custody by a low-level Armenian gang soldier. It seems that someone called in the feds after a group of girls committed suicide at the school, the feds investigated, and the money-laundering scheme was exposed. The government seized sixteen-point-eight million in dirty money and traced it back to an additional twenty-five more.”

“Shit,” Vivi gasped. “We made that call to the feds.”

“That’s right,” Elisa said. “I was in “the closet” and you guys had snuck in to see me. On the way back, Bianca had overheard the administrators talking about making the girls’ deaths look like a suicide. Lexie recovered the surveillance footage. The three of us created a distraction so Bianca could make the call.”

“That explains why she kidnapped Gidget, set up Bianca and targeted the rest of your three,” Keir said.

“But how did she know we were here?” Marko asked from his spot at the far end of the room—that just happened to give him the perfect sight line to watch Elisa.

“Easy.” Lexie spun her laptop around so it faced the rest of the group.

A report from the Phoenix Police Department took up most of the screen. It was the crime techs’ final report about the house the B-Squad had raided after just missing Yasmin, Walsh and Gidget. She’d highlighted one section. It described a high-end video camera with a powerful, long-range wireless link to an undetermined offsite location. The crime-scene techs had found it hidden inside a clock on the fireplace mantel. That explained the fake bomb they’d found in the hearth. It was the perfect sleight-of-hand maneuver to keep their attention away from the real prize.

Taz’s gut lurched. The bitch had probably been on to them since Bisu Manor. And he’d missed it. Guilt knotted his lungs.

Since there wasn’t anything he could do about it now except correct his fuck up, he paced the small space available in the yacht’s below-decks living room, crowded as it was with eight people. “Okay, let’s go over the plan one more time to make sure we haven’t missed anything.”

Normally this was when the team gave him shit for being an anal-retentive, bossy pain in the ass. Tonight it was different. They all knew it.

“Thanks to Lexie’s hack into the resort’s closed-caption video, we know that Yasmin is holed up with Walsh, Bianca and Gidget at the biggest bungalow on the north tip of the island,” he said, clenching and unclenching his hands into fists. “It has its own dock and, according to a not-legal-but-totally-necessary sneak-peek from a government satellite, we know there’s a boat heading straight towards them. We have thirty minutes.”

“Which is no problem.” Across the room, Lash clicked the night scope onto his favorite sniper rifle. “All we need to do is draw them out into the open. Our friendly DEA agents will meet us there. They’ll focus on Yasmin, Walsh and anything pertaining to Genie’s Wish. We locate Bianca and Gidget and then get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Exactly,” Taz said. “So why the rifle?”

His answering grin was ice cold. “Because as I’m watching all of the fun from my perch, I’ll be ready just in case.”

“If anyone takes out that bitch, it’ll be me,” Taz snarled, enjoying the mental image of ending her even if he wouldn’t be able to. “But Blackfish was adamant about taking her alive.”

The timer on his phone went off. “Let’s go.”

“We haven’t gotten the signal from Blackfish,” Vivi said.

She was never exactly a team player with the DEA, but the ties were still there. He didn’t suffer from the same problem. They’d find another way in rather than a surprise knock-knock from the feds.

“I’m not waiting any longer,” he said. “We cut it any closer with that boat coming in for them and they could be in the wind.” He looked around at the assembled team, brain speeding ahead to recalibrate his plan. “Yasmin made it sound like she had briefs on the whole team. Elisa, can you throw a disguise together that will throw her off enough to get us in the door?”

Their makeover maven shook her head. “Not unless you want to wait another twenty minutes.”

“They don’t know me,” a female voice said from behind him, the know-it-all tone an unmistakable giveaway.

Everyone turned. Tamara stood in the doorway between the living room and the galley. She must have been lurking in the dimly lit space the entire time.

“I can do this.” The words sped out of her mouth. “Let me help. I owe you guys at least that much. Anyway, I’m your best option right now.”

“Fucking A.” He tried to think of another way—any other way—to make the plan work and came up with bupkis. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

T
hanks to Lexie’s
mobile eye in the sky, they were able to avoid all of the resort’s closed-circuit cameras dotting the area around Yasmin’s bungalow. That didn’t ease the volcanic ulcer eating away at what was left of Taz’s stomach lining.

Worrying for someone else besides his brothers was a new thing for him. In fact, he’d never experienced it until the night he’d walked into Bisu Manor without any goal in mind other than to get laid and ended up falling in love.

Soartă
—fate—had ordered his life to unfold this way, his mother would have said. Of course, when she’d been talking to him about
soartă
when he was a boy, it was usually when he was helping her clean up the broken glass and splattered blood after his father had taken out his frustrations with the world on her face. He’d been all of six when he’d decided fate could go screw itself, no one and nothing would ever have control over him to the point that he made stupid decisions because of some misplaced emotion that fools called love.

With tonight’s success depending on whether his ex-wife could fake her way into Yasmin’s bungalow so he could take out the woman who’d been six steps ahead of them for months and rescue the woman he loved, he knew that
soartă
was having a helluva laugh at his expense right now. He didn’t give a fuck. He just wanted Bianca safe.

“Ready?” he asked Tamara.

She nodded but didn’t stop chewing the inside of her cheek.

He double-checked his sidearm and then pressed the comm unit in his ear. “Everyone set?”

Eight voices gave the affirmative.

From their position in the shadows at the base of the bungalow next to Yasmin’s, he and Tamara had the perfect view of the target door. Marko was ready to go in on his six. Lash was set up in a sniper’s nest. The rest of the team was scattered around the perimeter far enough away not to be detected by Yasmin, ready to move on his command. Blackfish and his agents were still AWOL.

Staying in his crouch, he pivoted to face Tamara. “You remember what you need to do?”

“Play the dumb drunk girl.” She slipped off her sandals and hooked the straps around one extended finger. “Honey Bear, if you only knew how often I’ve had to act brainless in this life, you’d be a tad less worried.”

“But this time counts,” he said, hating how his throat got tighter when each passing second.

Tamara paused in the process of messing up her hair with her free hand and focused all of her attention on him. “I know. Believe it or not, I really do. I won’t fuck this up, Taz. I promise.”

She gave his arm a quick squeeze and then took off, weaving her way toward Yasmin’s door. Her voice carried on the still night air as she sang a dirty version of “Jingle Bells.”

“Darling,” she cooed, knocking on the door. “It’s me. My key doesn’t work. Let me in. I’m so wet for you, baby.”

Nothing. There wasn’t even a flicker of movement at the window.

Tamara slapped her palm hard against the door. “Get your ass out of bed and open the door, dammit!”

The door opened and Walsh stuck his head out. Whatever he was about to say to shoo Tamara off took a backseat when she barreled past him into the bungalow. Caught off guard, Walsh left the door partially open when he followed her inside.

“That’s it,” he said into the comm. “We’re a go.”

Adrenaline coursing through his veins as his feet pounded against the stone path when he ran to the open door and then shouldered his way inside. The rest of the team, minus Lash in his scouted sniper perch, rushed to positions around the bungalow. Lexie, Vivi, Duke, Keir and Elisa maintained positions around the bungalow to stymie escape. Marko stalked in behind Taz.

Gidget and Bianca sat on the couch, their eyes vacant. Neither turned their attention away from the bathroom door or even flinched when Taz burst in.

Walsh shoved Tamara into a wall and dove for a nine millimeter on the coffee table. Taz launched himself at the other man. He folded like origami under him. They rolled, trading vicious punches and dirty jabs as they went. Hooking a leg around Walsh’s, he halted their momentum and forced his way on top. Fury exploded in him. He landed blow after blow to the man’s face.

“Taz,” Marko shouted in the distance. “Enough.”

The sound of his brother’s voice pulled him back from the edge and he pushed off of the other man. Walsh didn’t move. His lungs pumped up and down but his face was a mess of blood and broken bone.

“Where’s Yasmin?” he asked, breathing hard.

“I cleared the bedroom. She wasn’t there.”

Taz faced the women on the couch who still hadn’t moved. The sight made bile rise in his throat. Yasmin had given each of them enough Genie’s Wish to turn them into zombies. The bitch better hope it was only temporary. Both women stared at the bathroom door as expectant as a pair of dogs awaiting their master.

He withdrew his Beretta from the shoulder holster and took aim at the door. “We know you’re in there, Yasmin. You might as well come on out on your own power.”

The doorknob turned.

He clicked his gun’s safety off.

The line of light outlining the door grew wider as it opened.

“I’m not armed,” Yasmin called out.

“That’s a damn shame,” he responded.

She stood in the middle of the open door, her hands raised high above her head.

He relaxed his stance a fraction. Then he noticed it. The dog training clicker—exactly what she’d used to set off the thugs earlier.

He rushed forward just as she pushed it twice.

* * *

A small, strangled voice in Bianca’s head cried out for her to stop, but there was nothing she could do. It was like she was possessed by an evil spirt—or worse, Yasmin’s wishes. She hurled herself toward Taz, her limbs responding to cognitive cues her conscious mind wasn’t giving out.

She had still been groggy from the Taser shock when Walsh had plunged a needle into the vein on the inside of her elbow. Fire shot through her veins and then, a heartbeat later, it was like she was wrapped in cotton and floating on air. Yasmin had appeared in front of her and softly stroked her cheeks before telling her to wait. So she did.

Nothing mattered as she drifted in the cool in-between place. Not the fact that Gidget sat next to her in the same condition. Not the muffled conversation between Walsh and Yasmin. Not the whispered voice inside her telling her to run. The discomfort came later, when Yasmin walked into the bathroom and shut the door between them. It was like being cut off from the sun.

But the moment the door open and Yasmin snapped the clicker, that perfect sense of being settled over her.

Even though she tried to fight it, her body acted on its own power. She slammed into Taz, using momentum to take him down with her. Using all of her Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training and a few things she’d picked up from the MMA fighters training at the Devil’s Dip Gym against the man she loved, Bianca landed her full weight so it centered on Taz’s shoulders and windpipe, cutting off his air supply.

“Bianca, it’s me,” Taz wheezed out. “Kitten, I don’t want to hurt you.”

He could flip her off without breaking a sweat, send her flying into a wall and knock her out, but he wouldn’t—not after what he’d grown up seeing his dad do to his mother. She knew that. Her alter-personality knew it too and was using it to her advantage.

Behind her, Gidget wept as she lurched toward the melee, a hypodermic needle in her white-knuckled grasp.

“Back away and put the needle down,” Marko yelled, training his gun on Gidget.

Gidget’s green eyes went wide, but she didn’t move back—she dove forward.

The shot cracked.

Gidget sailed back, tumbled by an invisible hand. Blood soaked her shirt at the shoulder. The needle rolled out of her grasp and onto the bamboo wood floor.

Relief flooded Bianca’s system and her hold on Taz eased.

A click boomed in her head. She whipped her head around.

Yasmin rushed from the bathroom. She yanked Gidget up and used her as a human shield as she dashed to the open patio door leading out to the bungalow’s private dock.

“Don’t fucking move, Gidget, unless it’s to take a bullet for me,” she said, holding tight to the clicker and a black doctor’s satchel. “Do whatever it takes to stop them, Bianca!”

Splotches of angry color highlighted Yasmin’s knife-sharp cheekbones and she pressed the clicker again.

“Do it,” she yelled.

Bianca flung herself off Taz and dove forward, her arms outstretched. Even as she screamed internally, her fingers closed around the needle.

“You’ve got to fight it, Bianca,” Taz hollered as he clamped a hand on her ankle and yanked her back. “You can do it.”

Digging deep, she grabbed for the person she was, not this drugged-up zombie under Yasmin’s control. Another click, loud enough to make her shudder. It echoed in her head, bouncing between her brain and skull, making her cry out in pain. She took a deep breath, determined to hold on but something inside her broke, as if her brain had cracked right down the middle and the part that controlled her limbs was severed from the rest of her.

In one fluid motion, she spun around, jabbed the needle into Taz’s bicep and pressed the plunger, sending two full doses of Genie’s Wish rushing into him.

A millisecond later, the large picture window in the living room shattered and a sniper’s bullet sent her flying backward. Her head cracked against the floor. Then there was nothing but blessed blackness.