Chapter Forty

Ghost

M y mouth an inch from the dried tears on her soft cheek, I played it her way.

I told her the truth. "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on, Safiya Savas." Brushing my lips against her temple, telling myself it was for her, I kept my dominant hand shoved in my pocket and aimed for a clean exfil.

I didn't make it one step.

Her arm shot out, she fisted a handful of my shirt, then she went for it. Face tipped, legs stretched, pulling my shirt down as she went up on her toes, she leaned in for contact. "Gray—"

Before my name left those full lips, I gripped her wrist, yanked her arm out, and pulled her off me as I gave one warning. "Do you know the single worst mistake you can make right now?"

Her sharp inhale all shock that would morph into anger later, she looked up at me with fear and shame before turning her head, which only put the tempting skin of her neck closer to my mouth.

Using a tone I did not fucking deploy on her, I went there. "I asked you a question."

A faint sound escaped her lips that I would've missed if I hadn't been holding her hostage, but there was no mistaking the tenor of it.

Duress.

"Answer," I demanded in a cold rage aimed at myself.

Her throat moved, a tremor shook her, and the woman I'd almost killed spoke with more fear than when she'd asked me if the plane was fucking crashing. "No, I do not."

I confessed. "Touching me without permission." My control gone, my rage coming in hot every damn time I relived seeing her doubled over on that plane or trussed up at that compound, it would be worse than a mistake if she put her mouth on mine right now.

Shrinking back as if I'd struck her, she said nothing.

Tightening my grip around her already bruised wrist and hating myself more for it, I drove my point home. "Do you understand now?"

"Yes."

She didn't, but I lowered her arm. Using what little self-discipline I had left to restrain every dominant and debaucherous thing I wanted to do to her body, I dropped my voice. "You do not take liberties with me, Safiya." Releasing her, I grabbed the M24 and walked the fuck out.

Halfway down the hall, I tapped my comm on. "November, copy?"

"Affirmative."

"I need to make an encrypted call, and every burner I had went down with the Citation."

"Understood. Borrow or lift one of the crew's cells and call me back from it."

"Roger that." I tapped the comm off and strode onto the bridge.

The captain and first engineer glanced at me, but the captain spoke first. "I need extra—"

"I know, and you'll have it in a minute. I need to borrow a cell phone first."

The captain glanced at another crew member and nodded.

The other man handed me his phone.

Without comment, I took it and left the bridge. Moving outside to one of the decks, I called the hacker back.

He answered immediately. "Ghost?"

"Affirmative."

"Hold."

A few seconds later, the hacker came back on the call. "You're encrypted. I'll disable it in ten minutes."

"I only need five." I hung up and made another call.

Sounding winded, Cypher answered after four rings. "Can't talk."

Already pumping adrenaline, I went on full alert. "Problem?"

"Exfilling."

I glanced at my watch. He should've been in the clear by now. All the strike teams should've. "Sitrep. Why aren't you out already?"

"Thirty seconds." He hung up.

Refraining from texting the others until I heard back from Cypher, I logged into my servers and pulled up my sat feeds. Chaos had the largest group of HVTs to hit, but Cypher had the most difficult. I wanted sitreps from all of them STAT. But I also wanted to know who the fuck leaked intel to my nemesis, because I didn't think he'd gotten into my sat coms on his own when he'd tracked me at the cabin. I also wanted to know how much intel he had before I went after the profiler.

The feeds loaded, and I zoomed in on the Venezuelan compound.

Rubble, smoke, fire. Compete decimation.

I logged out of my network, wiped the search history, and the cell rang with a blocked number.

I answered. "Report."

"Clear," Cypher replied. "Where the fuck have you been?"

"Busy. Sitrep on all the teams," I demanded.

Cypher paused, then he did what he did best. He stayed the course. "Protocol was text only from you. Which should've been an hour ago. Whose cell are you using? I don't recognize the encryption."

"Borrowed but secure. Sitrep," I repeated, out of fucking patience.

"Mission success."

I fucking exhaled.

"Your turn," he demanded.

CYPBERCOM had had November, but Delta Force had had Cypher. Not equitable, definitely different, but head-to-head in measurable skill sets. What Cypher lacked in programming, he more than made up for it on the battlefield, and his hacking skills were improving daily. He was the only person besides myself, and now apparently November, who had full access to my satellites and network. I also knew Cypher would've been the least likely out of the four team leaders to leak intel to my nemesis about the op.

I gave Cypher a shortened version. "HVT down. Complication on exfil." I glanced at my watch and calculated. "Contact the others and tell them to report by sixteen hundred hours, Eastern Standard Time, to these coordinates." I texted him the GPS location. "Confirm receipt."

"First, the order to pull everyone in should come from you. You know Judas won't show for me. Questionable if he'll show for you. Second, that's only seventeen hours from now, those are North American coordinates, and we're all spread out. Third, what complication? You don't have complications in the field."

The Solace repositioned to angle into headwinds as she aimed for Taylor's Bay. "Tomorrow. Sixteen hundred. Handle it."

"Ghost," Cypher clipped in warning. "What complication?"

"Hot extraction. Our plane went down. I have to go. Cell encryption is timed."

" Shit . Venezuela," Cypher stated knowingly.

I didn't confirm or deny. "Tomorrow."

"All right. Consider it handled."

"Good copy." I hung up, wiped the calls and text, and was turning back toward the bridge when both Simon and the crew who'd loaned me his cell appeared on deck, armed with matching M24s.

"Ready?" Simon asked.

"Roger." I handed the phone back to the other crew. "Ares?"

"In position starboard," Simon answered. "You're port side. We've got bow and bridge."

"Good copy. Helios?" I didn't fucking forgive him. I never would. But Feralyn was attached to the asshole for some reason, and I didn't want to see the look on her face that I'd seen on Safiya's tonight.

The two crew members looked at each other.

Shit. "Dead?"

"No," Simon quickly answered.

Then I understood the look. "Conscious and pissed about his plane."

Simon tipped his chin.

"Copy. Let's get this done." I moved into position, it started to rain, and for a split second, my head swam.

I shook it off and sighted through the scope.

The Solace pulled into Taylor's Bay.