Hot & Bothered (A Hostile Operations Team Novel - Book 8) Read online

  Her heart thumped. “What, Ryan?”

  His smile got her right in the pit of her stomach. “It can wait. You need to think about this meeting and Mustafa.”

  She knew she did, and yet he was always front and center in her mind. Especially now. She lifted on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. Then she slipped out the door and started the long walk to the market.

  *

  Mustafa wasn’t there when she arrived, but then she hadn’t expected him to be. The café was crowded this afternoon with men and women—though mostly men—having the strong, sweet Arab coffee flavored with cardamom that they preferred.

  Acamar hadn’t gone so far as to prohibit men and women from frequenting the same establishments yet, but she feared it was coming if the Freedom Force had their way. She took a table in the back, not the usual one she sat at, but close to it, and waited.

  She had the proprietor bring her water and coffee even though she knew she couldn’t drink the coffee now that she was pregnant. She sipped the water and let her gaze slide over the café and the market. It was crowded too, with people bargaining for vegetables, meats, and spices. There was a rug dealer hawking his wares, beautiful handwoven carpets made by the women of Acamarian villages. She’d bought one of those rugs, a small one, for her room when she first arrived two months ago.

  There was also a copper seller whose hand-hammered pots would bring a fortune in a specialty store in a US mall, but here were perfectly ordinary and used by women as daily cooking vessels and not showpieces to hang over a kitchen island.

  Emily scanned the area, seeking her HOT boys. She wouldn’t find them, but she knew they were there. She touched her mic while bending her head to blow on her coffee.

  “Are you in position yet?”

  “I can see you at the table in the back,” Ryan said. “You’re talking to your coffee.”

  She wanted to laugh but she somehow managed to keep a straight face. “No, I’m talking to you.”

  “Sure you are, honey.”

  “Ry…? Can the others hear us?” She’d only talked to him during the setup, so she wasn’t sure. Maybe they could say a few things now while they were waiting.

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Oh… too bad.”

  He snorted. “Yeah.”

  “Jesus, enough with the flirting,” Nick grumbled. “She’s practically my baby sister. It’s creepy to listen in.”

  “Better get used to it, Brandy,” Ryan said. “Because when we return Stateside, I’m marrying her. That’ll make us brothers or something. Won’t family picnics be a blast?”

  Nick snorted. “Great, now I’ll have to hang out with you in our off time too. Just what I wanted.”

  Emily couldn’t help but smile. These guys were already close, all of them, but they had to razz each other anyway. Neither one of them was going to be upset about family picnics or whatever it was they ended up doing together.

  Wait… did that mean she was seriously going to marry him? Yeah, maybe it did. Maybe it would be okay after all. If Mustafa would just show up and give them the coordinates, then HOT could get to rescuing the hostages. And maybe that would be enough for Ian’s contacts to clear her name.

  A tall man clad in desert robes made his way toward the café, and her insides squeezed tight. Hassan Mustafa walked with purpose, like always. And why wouldn’t he? If everything went well, he’d be leaving here with enough money to disappear into a part of the world where the Freedom Force couldn’t find him. It wouldn’t be enough for an American, but for a Qu’rimi man who’d lived a life of hardship and deprivation, it was enough to live like a king in the right location.

  He glanced around before entering the café. Carefully, he made his way to her table and sat down. The proprietor was there immediately with a coffee. When he walked away, Mustafa’s dark eyes bored into her.

  “Do you have it?”

  “Yes. Do you?”

  His gaze sharpened for a second before settling back into its usual gleam of mild irritation. “Yes.”

  “Then tell me where to find them, and you’ll get your package.”

  He followed her hand as she ran it over the lump beneath her robe. He sat back and took a sip of the coffee. “How do I know what that is?”

  “You don’t. And I don’t know that what you’re about to tell me will be the truth.”

  He leaned forward suddenly and her heartbeat kicked up. “I have risked my life to get this information,” he spat out. “I have no reason to lie.”

  “That’s good,” she told him coolly. “Because if what you tell me is false, you will be hunted down and dealt with. It won’t be pretty, I promise you that.”

  He sneered. “You will not find me once we are done here today. This is the end.”

  “You aren’t inspiring my confidence.”

  There was a disturbance of some sort in the market then, and her gaze went to it the same as his did. She couldn’t tell what the issue was, but her heart thumped at the chaos of bodies and yelling. Her first instinct was to run, but this wasn’t a bomb or anything. It was some sort of disagreement in the market, no doubt.

  Mustafa turned to look at her again—and then he shot to his feet and she gasped. She started to tell him to sit back down, that they weren’t done yet, but he wasn’t looking at her at all. He was looking with wide eyes behind her. He started to fumble for his weapon, and Emily bolted up, whirling.

  Two men with balaclavas over their faces rushed toward her and Mustafa. “Ryan,” she screamed as the men raised their weapons.

  But whether he heard her or not, she didn’t know. A hot blast came from one of the guns at that moment, and people screamed. Tables scraped and turned over, and someone grabbed her and yanked her out of the way. She thought maybe it was Ryan, but when she turned, a dark hood slipped over her head. She was lifted, kicking and screaming, and thrown over a hard shoulder.

  It knocked the breath out of her, made her choke. My baby! Her assailant’s shoulder had jammed into her abdomen, crashing right into where her precious tiny baby was living and growing. If something happened to her baby…

  Emily moaned the word no, fighting for consciousness, gripping the man’s clothing and willing herself to let go and punch him. But the hood was stifling and breathing was difficult. Her limbs wouldn’t move. Her head bounced against his back as he ran. It was everything she could do to pull in air.

  And then suddenly she couldn’t.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?” Ryan roared at the sound of a gunshot. He sprinted for the café along with Ice and Brandy. They’d been in the market, watching and listening. When an old lady started yelling at a vendor, Ryan had only half paid attention. Then a young man jumped into the fray, a market stall of vegetables became a food fight, and the crowd started to grumble and take sides.

  Of course it had been meant as a distraction. He knew that now. They all did.

  Fiddler was supposed to be watching the rear of the building in which the café was housed, but he hadn’t sounded an alarm. Since the café was in the middle of a busy market, there were people coming and going from everywhere. Probably there’d been nothing unusual in anything he’d seen.

  “I have no fucking idea,” came Fiddler’s growled reply in response. “They must have been inside the building already.”

  Ryan’s heart beat double time as he ran. He burst into the café, gun aloft. The people still there screamed anew, lifting hands over heads. A body lay on the floor, blood pooling around him in a steady stream.

  It was Hassan Mustafa. Ryan bent to take his pulse, but there was none. He’d been shot in the chest at point-blank range. That much was clear from the blood spatter on the walls and floor. The proprietor chattered in Arabic while wringing his hands. There was a door on one wall that stood open, and Ryan rushed toward it. It led into a shop filled with furniture and household goods. Overhead, copper pans banged together as if someone had rushed through only recently and h
it them all on the way.

  “Emily,” he said into the mic. “Where are you? Can you hear me? Emily!”

  The shopkeeper stood with hands over his head, pointing the way toward the back of the shop. Ryan stalked down the narrow path, sweeping the gun right and left, hoping beyond hope to find Emily back there.

  “Anything?” Brandy said.

  “Nothing here,” Iceman replied.

  “Nothing,” Fiddler added.

  Fear and fury swirled in Ryan’s belly. “Not yet. But we’ll find her. Jesus, we have to find her.”

  “We’ve got the bio-tracker—don’t forget that. We’ll get her back.”

  He hadn’t forgotten, but if he stopped searching now, if he walked away and went back to Black’s compound without turning over every stone there was, he feared something would happen to her before they could find her. Tracker or not, he was scared for her. For his woman. His baby.

  He swept all the way to the back of the shop and then burst through the rear door. There was nothing but a street there, and it was packed with people and cars. He scanned the area, looking for Emily, for anything familiar or out of place, then whirled and went back inside. When he found a stairwell, he kicked in the door and started up the stairs.

  But there was nothing up there except living quarters, presumably for the shopkeeper. The first room was empty except for a couple of chairs, a rug, and a television. There was another with an open door, and Ryan moved toward it. The room contained a bed and little else. There were no closets. He lowered the gun and made his way down the stairs again.

  He met his team at the front of the shop. None of them had Emily. And they didn’t look happy.

  “We have to get back to the compound,” Ice said. “Kid’s got data on the tracker.”

  His heart hurt. His soul hurt. Everything hurt. Full-blown panic threatened to blossom in his chest and take him to his knees. “Where is she?”

  “Moving away from the market.”

  Ryan hefted his weapon. “We need to go after her. Right fucking now.”

  Brandy put a hand on his arm. “They’re moving too fast. They’re in a car and we’re on foot.”

  “The streets are logjammed with traffic. We can catch them.”

  Ice shook his head. “They’re moving steadily. Kid says they’ll hit the outskirts in five minutes. If we’re lucky, they’ll lead us to the hostages.”

  Ryan blinked. Rage swelled in his gut, his throat. “Wait a minute… You want to let them take her away so we can find out where the hostages are? What if they don’t waste any time before they kill her, huh? What then, asshole?”

  Ice got up in his face, his expression filled with fury. “No one wants Emily hurt. No one. It’s a fucking insult for you to suggest any of us want to use her to lead us to the hostages. If it turns out that way, then maybe we can salvage this mission. But nobody wanted it to happen like this.”

  He knew better, he really did, but knowing they’d lost her right out from under their noses made him question everything. Were they slipping? Every team had a failure, and while he’d thought they’d had theirs when two members died during an operation a couple of years ago, maybe they were headed for another.

  And this time it involved Emily.

  No.

  “They want her alive,” Fiddler said. “They killed Mustafa on the spot.”

  “We’re wasting time,” Brandy ground out. “Let’s get back to HQ so we can find Emily and free those hostages.”

  Ryan couldn’t do anything but go mutely with them. They took off at a jog, making their way back to Black’s compound in about ten minutes. Grim faces greeted them as they entered the room where HOT had set up their command center. Ian Black was there, but he didn’t say anything for a change.

  “We’ve still got her,” Kid said as they walked in. “They’re on the highway, moving out of the city.”

  Matt had a map spread out on a table. “Looks like they’re heading for the border.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” Ryan asked. “Let’s go.”

  Matt looked up. “We can’t go yet, Flash.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Mendez’s orders.”

  *

  Emily was aware of movement beneath her. Tires on sand. Her breath was hot on her face, which meant she was still wearing the hood—but it wasn’t tight. She could breathe, though the smells coming from the vehicle almost made her wish she couldn’t.

  Unwashed, sweaty bodies and stale cigarette smoke. The two men in the café had definitely been Freedom Force, but there were probably others now. Mustafa had recognized them—and been terrified. With good reason, considering he’d been betraying them.

  They must have figured it out and followed him. His life was forfeit now. And maybe hers as well, especially when they figured out who she was. Light of Zaran. The wife of one of their commanders, a woman who had gone missing the night he died—a night in which an American Special Ops team had infiltrated the camp at Ras al-Dura. Maybe they would blame her for it.

  She could tell by the lack of weight on her ankle that her holster was empty. They’d removed the gun. Her knives were gone too.

  One of the men said something, and she focused on his voice. She didn’t recognize it, but she could understand what he said. Perhaps he didn’t know that yet—or perhaps he didn’t care.

  It didn’t matter much anyway because he didn’t say anything important. A grumble that he was nearly out of cigarettes. Another man answered, telling him they’d be back at the camp soon.

  She wished she knew which camp. Her heart raced and her belly ached. She put a hand over her middle and held it there, praying her baby was okay. If she lost this child, what if she never got pregnant again? What if this was her only chance?

  She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed harder. Soon the vehicle slowed. A few moments later, it stopped and the doors were flung open. She could tell by the wash of desert air that rolled inside. It was hot, which meant it was still daylight. That was good because she had no idea how long she’d been passed out.

  But if it was still day, that meant she hadn’t been out too long and they hadn’t driven far. Twenty or thirty miles maybe. She hoped like hell that bio-tracker thing Ryan had put on her worked.

  Her chest ached at the thought of him. He would be blaming himself for this. The fact he hadn’t gotten there in time, hadn’t stopped these men from taking her, would be killing him. He’d told her she would be safe, and she knew she would be.

  She believed she would be. She had to believe it, or she’d go crazy.

  Rough hands grabbed her and jerked her up. The strap from the messenger bag tightened as she stood, the familiar weight of the money still there. That was a surprise considering they’d searched her enough to take her weapon. She stumbled and reached out to break her fall, her hands colliding with cloth. Whoever it was cursed at her and shoved her back. She fell onto her butt and then turned on her knees and managed to get up again while he yelled obscenities at her. She didn’t dare take the sack off her head, even though she could because her hands were free.

  A hard hand gripped her by the elbow and guided her down from the vehicle.

  Someone grabbed the edge of the sack and ripped it up and off. Emily blinked against the bright daylight, lifting her hands to shield her eyes.

  “What are you doing, idiot?” someone yelled. “I told you not to harm the woman.”

  “She is not harmed, Your Excellency.”

  “You touch her again and you die.” The voice was closer now. It was a hard male voice that tickled her memory. She slid her hand from her eyes slowly, blinking. The desert sun was harsh, but it was sinking into the sky now and the light was more golden than white.

  A man stood before her in long white robes, the kaffiyeh on his head fluttering in a breeze that chose that particular moment to blow. When she focused on him fully, he touched his head and his heart before bowing low. The men around her did the same as if their movem
ents were somehow tied to his.

  What the…?

  Emily’s mouth dropped open, but nothing came out. She knew this man. Malik ibn Essa, a junior lieutenant who’d been under Zaran’s command. When he spoke again, a fresh chill wrapped around her heart and squeezed it with icy fingers.

  “Light of Zaran, we are glad you have come home to us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE WAITING WAS THE WORST PART. Ryan jumped to his feet and resumed his circuit of the room. He’d been up and down probably ten times, but he couldn’t sit still. His team—and Echo Squad—sat around the room, waiting much more patiently than he did.

  Ian Black had left a while ago. Ryan was glad, because he didn’t want to look at the man’s face. It was Black’s fault Emily was here, Black’s fault she’d been meeting with Mustafa in the first place. Looking at him only made Ryan want to kill him. Something of which he was sure Mendez would not approve.

  He knew what they were waiting for. Mendez had sent a drone with thermal imaging capabilities and an advanced radar system that would give them a readout on the technical specifications of the place where Emily was being held. They needed to know that information if they were going to break in.

  And they needed confirmation that the hostages were there. Thermal imaging would be able to detect the bodies and pinpoint with one hundred percent accuracy how many men and women there were. For the hostages, it should be five women and eight men. Of course there would be others in the camp, but it was likely the hostages were all together. Or separated by sex, which would still help HOT confirm their presence.

  The information on Emily’s bio-tracker hadn’t changed. It was functioning, which meant she was still alive. That didn’t make it any easier on him. Her vital signs weren’t ideal. Her blood pressure was up and her heart rate was faster than it should be.

  That was fear. But nothing had changed recently, which meant her situation hadn’t changed. They weren’t torturing her—but for how long would that last?

  He hated to think what they would do to her once they got whatever it was they wanted. He simply didn’t believe anyone in the Freedom Force was naïve enough to think she was still on their side. Her husband was dead and she’d been gone for months. Now she showed up in a café with half a million dollars and a meeting with a man they’d killed rather than take with them.