Winters Heat (Titan) (20 page)

“He has a point, Winters.” Jared studied a topography map on the table.

“What? That I don’t wear a watch? Or that first one in didn’t turn on the coffee?” Winters glared at Parker.

A few other men shuffled into the room, and they all took seats around a large table, bitching about the ungodly time of day. Parker spread out a handful of glossy papers, and everyone shuffled through the pile. Jared nodded to Parker, signaling for him to begin.

“I retrieved shots from the traffic cameras, toll booths, and security footage at the places Winters stopped.” Parker took some photos from the men and arranged them in chronological order. “Airport. First motel.”

Everything looked legit. Parker could pull any picture anywhere there was a camera. That was for sure.

He pointed to additional shots on the table. “These two men followed Winters from the Nation’s Capitol to Derby City. They’re employed by Juan Carlos Silva. A Colombian cartel. They trade mostly women and drugs.”

Jared growled. “I’m sick of cartel kingpins trafficking girls.”

Aren’t we all?

Parker tossed out another photo. “This ugly fucker is Diego Cortes, reportedly one of Silva’s top men. He was behind the grab at the airport. Probably panicked after you dismembered his team and hired a couple of street punks to fill ranks. He also came after you at the second motel.”

The guys were shuffling through the eight by ten glossies. Winters didn’t need to see them. He lived it. He caught a smirk from Parker.

Parker laid out another photograph, very deliberate, and tapped it. “Here’s the karaoke bar where Winters engaged them. Police records indicate Cortes and another man were found dead in a car trunk.”

Like a donkey kick to his gut, Winters saw a shot from a security camera, Mia pinning him to the wall. Goddamn, Parker. The man was going down.

Someone in the room made kissing noises. Someone else laughed. They were all going to get a beating.

Winters looked at the glossy again. It was defendable. A variation of a honey pot scheme: the operative must act otherwise engaged to lure in the enemy. The maneuver worked every time and was in all their book of tricks. But it wasn’t a move that needed a Polaroid. He would kill Parker later. Knock him out cold.

Every man in the room focused on that photo—with Mia’s hair loose and wild around her shoulders, her lips very much pressed against his neck, and his face showing just how into that lip lock he was—he’d never live that down. Ever.

He’d have to kill everyone in the room.

“Fuck you very much, Parker.”

Parker laughed and rolled his head back. It’d be better if it just snapped off.

Winters groused and tried to move forward. “So what’s the deal? More of Silva’s men are on their way? They think the NOC list’s still in play?”

“Chatter on the wires says that Juan Carlos Silva is furious. If you hadn’t killed his man, he would have done it for you. Silva wants the NOC list and the girl. He’s offering her up as an incentive to his men.”

An incentive? Oh, hell no. Give me the coordinates. I’m going in.

Jared cleared his throat, silently issuing him an order to stick his ass to his chair.

Parker poked his finger on the war room’s large flat screen. “We’ve heard that Silva’s men have showed up here, here, and here.”

His fingerprints left smudges everywhere he touched.

Bring on the assholes. Winters was ready to end this shit.

Parker pulled up a new map on the big screen. Bright white dots blinked along his path from Kentucky to Virginia. “Everything shows that the Silva teams followed you back to DC. They’re likely already here again and have searched Mia Kensington’s office and home.”

“Which safe house did you stash her at?” Jared asked.

“She’s not at a Titan safe house.” Winters tried to add an uninterested inflection and focus on the screen of illuminating dots.

He could hear the wheels grinding in each head around the table. All stilled. Every set of eyes narrowed on him.

“Pray tell, Winters. Where might little Miss Mia Kensington be if she’s not a
Titan
safe house?” Jared arched his eyebrow.

Winters had heard of a slow clap before, but this was a slow laugh. Each man coughed a chuckle, then another, until it was a full-scale assault. Fuck them.

“She’s at my place. Leave it alone.”

“With Clara?” Parker piped in for good measure.

“And your mother?” Jared asked, though his rigid tone was the same as always. Boss man lifted an eyebrow, even smiled a little.

Winters pressed his lips into a tight, thin line. “I might just kill all you fuckers. What’s it to you, anyway?”

Now even Jared laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Well, hell, Winters. This is kind of cute. What do you think, boys? Winters found himself a girl?”

They all drum rolled on the table and hollered.

What did he expect? Of course, they’d find out. He wasn’t trying to keep her a secret. But the safe house revelation didn’t need to come on the heels of the honey pot photo.

“Screw you all.” It was the only thing he could think to say when he wasn’t cursing them each by name. So he said it again, and again, and again, only making the room more and more raucous.
Damn it.

After what Jared apparently determined was the appropriate amount of misery, he settled into his normal gruff self. “All right, all right. Enough with Winters’s bullshit. Silva will go after that list again in DC. It’s his last chance to get it before our client destroys it. We’ll arrange for Winters to do the drop off. Parker, you and lover boy will ensure Mia’s safe when she matriculates back to the real world.”

Winters’s phone beeped, and dread sunk to the pit of his stomach, landing hard. Knowing what the sound meant before he looked at the phone screen, he interrupted Jared. “We’ve got bigger problems.”

“Yeah, your phone is set to annoying,” someone called from the back of the room.

“The perimeter alarm at my house was breached.”

He pushed the stored number in his phone, reaching out to Mia. No answer. He hit redial.
C’mon, c’mon
. All he wanted was a quick hello. Still no answer. He hung up and punched each number into the phone to make sure the number dialed right. More ringing. Nothing. He pressed the end call button and dropped his head, muttering a prayer and a promise.

“Winters, don’t you have an alarm on your gate?” Parker asked. “And sensors on the fences? If those didn’t go off, then it’s just Mia triggering it. I mean, if no one has come on to the property—”

“Don’t be stupid, man. It can be done. Even with as good a system as I have.” He hit the redial button once more. Just to be sure. “Something’s wrong. Parker, hack my security system. And don’t bullshit me. I know you can do it.”

Parker looked at Jared, who nodded, and Parker pushed away from the war room table to a keyboard under the wall of flat screens. Winters checked his phone while anxiety blossomed. It was early, but Mia would be up by now. She should be answering the burner phone. His fingers jabbed as he dialed his home number. Same result. She wouldn’t pick it up anyway.

“Where’s the NOC list?” Jared asked.

Winters pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to his boss, readying to hightail it back home. “You take it. I’ve got business to attend to.”

“Hold it, Lone Ranger. If there’s a problem, we’ve all got business to attend to.”

He wanted to argue. Hell, he wanted to ignore him and walk out.

Jared could read his mind. “Sit your ass down, Winters.”

Parker’s fingers flew over his keyboard. Without stopping, he’d occasionally asked Winters a question. With a few flashes of pixilated grains, several of the security cameras in his home now broadcasted on monitors in front of the men. Parker flashed through several feeds and stopped.

The feed was clear as if he stood in the room. The kitchen was empty. A coffee mug shattered on the hardwood floor in the kitchen, coffee splattered. Parker skipped through other camera angles. Nothing was out of the ordinary in the living room or hallways or nursery.

“Parker, I have a camera pointed into the crib. It’s in the corner. Get that shot.”

Parker clacked on the keyboard. Winters’s stomach ached worse with each loud stroke, until one screen blinked, showed snow, then an empty crib.

“Fuck!”

Winters dialed his mother. She picked up on the second ring. Without giving her the chance to say hello, he said, “Do you have Clara?”

“What? No, she’s at home with Mia. You said—”

Winters clicked the phone off. He summoned all of his training, and all but ordered Parker to queue back the footage. Parker worked. Winters paced. The live images halted, then skipped backward in sixty-second increments.

“Keep going.”

“Dude, I’m working on it.”

The screen skipped backward in two-minute increments. A blur of activity flashed and Parker hit stop. The image was clear. Mia was at the table with a cup of coffee in one hand, a sleeping baby in the other arm, and a half-empty bottle on the table.

“Make it play right now.” Jared wasn’t interfering in Winters’s orders to Parker. None of the men interrupted. Winters’s lungs ached. His body warped into warrior mode and ignored the terrifying paralysis edging at his mind.

Every pair of eyes watched as Mia turned to the kitchen window. Her face pinched in surprise. Her mug fell and shattered. The baby startled awake. Mia grabbed the bottle, stuck it in Clara’s mouth, and the panicked look on her face made him ill. A heartbeat later, Mia took off at a run out of the kitchen.

Parker’s fingers flew across the keyboard, and Winters yelled at him. “Find her. Where did they go?”

“Looking.”

“Look faster.”

Black flooded the screen. The motion detector lights flicked on as Mia and Clara rushed through a door. Parker switched the footage to the large flat screen in the center of the room. No one breathed. They watched Mia finger the keys on the pegboard wall. She selected a set and stretched out her arm. His Hummer’s lights flashed as it unlocked, and she ran to the vehicle’s backdoor. She jumped in with Clara but came out alone. She ran to the driver’s door, cracked the tinted windows, ran back around, and to peek in the backseat at the baby.

“What the fuck is she doing?” Jared asked. Mia swiveled her head, a terrified expression plastered on her face. “Is she leaving?”

No one moved. Everyone watched. She flew back toward the house and manually turned off the lights.

“What did she do with Clara?” Jared was pissed.

“Car seat.” Winters mumbled.

“Car seat?”

“Yeah, asshole. She just rat holed my kid.”

Every guy in the room gave a collective oh.

Winters interrupted the stunned mumblings. “Can you get me a shot of what she saw outside?”

He needed to be there but was too far away. He couldn’t get home. Whatever they watched was History Channel by now. Nothing was worse. His head spun.

“Working on it,” Parker muttered. “Until I find that camera feed, keep watching this.”

It played in time and a half. Mia ran through several of the shots. The kitchen. The hallway. Up the stairs and toward the master bedroom.

“Has this woman gone mad?” Jared asked.

“Damn, boy.” Parker directed them to a different monitor in the corner. Parker rewound the screen, then hit play. A chopper landed several hundred feet from his house. That explains the perimeter alarm.

Men piled out. They took their lazy-ass time, knowing no escape was possible. They sauntered past the exterior camera. Parker clicked to the entrance camera feed. His front door exploded open. Two men stepped through. Others remained outside.

Every man watching the screens had to wonder where the hell they would go first. Winters had no idea. This was like reality television, the nightmare edition.

He didn’t know what to do, so he issued orders. “Fast forward. Go. Go. Go.”

Parker held up his hand. “Wait. Watch.”

Mia flinched in the upstairs hallway, then went to work slamming every door. She waited, then screamed. She dragged their attention straight up the stairs, and they took the easy catch, running toward her ruckus.

They were on her in seconds. She flayed and kicked, her nails clawed for their eyes, and her knees aimed for their nuts. Winters knew those moves all too well. They gagged her mouth and bound her hands, despite the throws of her fists. She bucked the entire time. A visible look of relief crossed her face as they pushed her out the busted front door.

“Good night.” Jared blew out a telling whistle. “That woman just baited those men away from Clara. Parker, what’s our elapsed time?”

“They were in and out in three and a half minutes.”

“Find me that helo.” Thank God Jared was barking orders, because Winters needed to dry heave.

He heard Jared on the phone, issuing orders for another team member to get out of bed and to get to Winters’s place post haste. He ended the call with a command to
secure that baby
. God willing, Clara would be sleeping.
Please let her sleep. Please.