Chapter 32

Thirty-Two

The clock ticking down had grown more audible over the past few days. Initially, the only time constraints had been to find her as soon as possible. Then it was to get her out. After—the drive was to get her to safety and keep her there.

Once we reached Michigan and dug in, the clock had all but stopped. For me anyway. Then it was a series of tasks that needed to be completed—side quests as it were. McQuade and I handled the bulk of it.

He took care of weapons while I handled everything else. I didn’t even mind it. Granted, I’d spent more time in jeans and flannel shirts than I thought remotely reasonable. The fact I’d not worn a tux or anything involving silk ties or shirts was almost amusing.

I didn’t hate it though. The fact I’d more or less gone totally off the grid wasn’t that unusual in my life. My accountant would make sure all my bills were paid—including his own. I had a housekeeper who looked after my home and she handled the bills there.

In fact, the only person likely missing me at all was my tailor. Food for thought, I supposed. The sound of a bedroom door closing quietly had me pivoting. I’d gotten up early, done my stretches and pushups in my room and come out to see about food.

While our rooms were located near the back of the house, we’d given Patch the largest room that was literally on the other side of the wall from the living room. The ensuite gave her privacy and it wasn’t that many steps from her work area to her bedroom.

Was she up this early? If she was, I’d make her espresso. I didn’t touch the machine before she woke up cause the grinder was noisy.

Instead of Patch coming down the short hall from her room it was McQuade, carrying his boots in one hand and his shirt in the other. His jeans weren’t even done up. He looked like he’d just rolled out of bed based on the disheveled hair alone.

He paused mid-step when his gaze hit mine. It was just after six in the morning and he’d just let himself out of her bedroom. Her bedroom. My teeth clicked as I snapped my mouth closed before the first comment escaped.

“You’re up,” McQuade said and I raised my eyebrows.

“Obviously.” The uneasy feeling in my gut expanded. His interest in our operator hadn’t been lost on me. Remington was equally taken with her. I thought, however, we’d all been on the same page about bedding her. She needed time to heal and to recover.

McQuade tilted his head from one side to the other, the pop of sound seemed to offer him some relief. It only served to amp up my own tension. He took another couple of steps toward me.

I tracked his every move. There were any number of items around us that could be turned into weapons. Not the least of which was the metal carafe we brewed coffee in. Apply enough force and it might even dent his stubborn skull.

If I did strike, I’d need to do it swiftly and with minimal awareness on his part. Largely because I wouldn’t lie to myself. He was an extremely dangerous man. Reprisal would hurt.

Didn’t mean I wouldn’t do it, I just needed to weigh how badly I needed to strike him and whether I could wait to extract my pound of flesh later.

“Spit it out,” McQuade said as he finally reached the border between kitchen and living room. We were on opposite sides of the breakfast bar. Arguably, we were on many other opposite sides than I’d earlier believed.

I eyed him as he set his boots down and then tugged his shirt on over his head. Saying anything wouldn’t be prudent. We needed a certain amount of peace for this alliance to continue. Patch needed our alliance.

At the rate she was going with her research, we would all be splitting up sooner rather than later. Then McQuade and Remington would be gone and I could find a way to insert myself back into her life.

She would need additional security for a while. Who better than a thief to make sure hers was impregnable?

The standoff stretched into the most uncomfortable of silences. He wasn’t going to give an inch, in fact, he seemed to be practically daring me to say something.

“She needs her rest.” Not my best material, yet wholly accurate.

“She does. That’s why I made sure she got it,” he countered. There was just the faintest of smirks on his face.

Cocky asshole. “She also needs patience and to not have anyone making demands on her. We don’t know she wasn’t raped.”

“We can probably guess she was, we know she took enormous physical abuse.” McQuade shrugged that off as if we were discussing the changing of a tire on a vehicle. “What’s your point?”

“Why the hell are you in her bed instead of out here, keeping watch, like you’re supposed to be?” The icy tone Remington spoke in came far closer to matching my thoughts than his words did. I wouldn’t have put it that way and at the same time, I wanted an answer.

“It’s none of your business,” McQuade said, then he tugged a phone out of his pocket. “I also have all the exterior cameras on here. The motion sensors would alert me—and they did. We had a very curious bunch of deer come through last night.”

The screen had been divided into four and flickered from one location to another. All places we’d put up cameras to give us the widest possible angles and the best views if anyone came at us from the road or the woods.

“So you put her safety into the hands of motion sensors.” Contempt licked every single syllable the British assassin spoke. Frankly, I couldn’t manufacture that level of disappointment or disdain. I wonder if it came with Remington’s pedigree. I hadn’t heard him come up the hall, but good to know we were on the same page.

His increasing anger seemed to let the air out of my own. The motion sensors were out there for a reason. They were tied into all of our phones. We also had extraction plans in place. The one with or closest to Patch got her out while the other two dealt with whatever incursion there was.

Chances were good, I’d be the one running with her since these two were a lot deadlier. Still, if it came down to firing a gun or letting her get hurt—I’d happily take on my share of the bloodshed.

“Second guessing your own idea, mate?” McQuade was just baiting the bear now. “That was the point of the motion sensors. Another layer of security. Don’t worry, I had an exit plan ready to go if we were compromised. She would have been fine.”

The smugness was a bit much. “You don’t have to be a dick about it.”

“Why not?” McQuade swung his gaze toward me before he motioned to the coffeemaker. “Also are you planning on making that or just having your judgment for breakfast?”

“Look, asshat,” I said, flattening my hands against the counter. “Fuck off with that attitude. You’re acting like you’re the only one involved.”

“No, I’m acting like I need coffee and you jackasses are too busy wondering if I’m dipping my dick to worry about whether you have a right to ask that question. What I do and who?—”

“The only who in the equation is Patch,” Remington said, cutting him off. “Don’t use her that way.”

“What makes you think I’m using her at all?” Every single part of that question was an insult. Did he think we were blind or stupid?

Remington held McQuade’s stare. The air around them crackled with danger and the oxygen began to leak out of the room. There was no way I wanted to be between them if a fight started…

The creak of her door opening might as well have been a gunshot, the pair backed up at the same time. They each gave ground and like me, they looked toward the bedroom. Patch emerged. She wore sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt. She loved the warmer, thicker clothes. Layers offered comfort.

Her disheveled hair was a lot like McQuade’s had been, but she was already pulling it back into a ponytail with a huge scrunchy. I rather liked the black tips on the golden silk hair. It was like she’d been the light, dipped into the darkness, but she survived.

If that wasn’t a metaphor for everything she’d gone through, I didn’t know what was. The effect with her hair all pulled back added another dimension to her. It registered that whenever she’d initially disappeared from her life, she’d changed her hair color.

I wasn’t entirely sure why that hadn’t occurred to me before. Of course she’d changed her hair color. Hair, eyes, and use a little cosmetics to change the dimensions or the contours on her face.

If she had any gift with stage makeup, she could also use putty to alter her nose and jaw. With the right glasses, the whole effect would change her entirely. I wasn’t sure they could reduce the magnetic look of hers, but she could look like someone else entirely.

“Guys?” Her voice came out a little raspy and hoarse. She had just woken up. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” McQuade and Remington answered in the same breath.

“Yes,” I told her, unwilling to lie and I ignored the dark looks the other two shot in my direction. “To be perfectly honest, it’s been a small miracle we’ve had few issues this long. We’ll work it out.”

Because I wasn’t dumping this in her lap, even if I’d been thinking about the kiss I gave her a hell of lot more than she had been.

Squashing that thought, I shook off the negativity. I had no idea what she’d been thinking about beyond obsessing over the information she’d been trying to coax out of her research.

“I’ll get your coffee started. What’s your plan for the day?”

She stared at me for a long moment, then glanced at the other two before coming back to me. “Are you sure?”

“That we’ll work it out?” I asked. At her nod, I pursed my lips. “For the most part, yes. Because currently, our goals remain aligned. We might not have met until we literally ran into each other at your house, but—we have proven we can work together to protect you. I’m confident enough in our skills and relative intelligence that we can maintain that.”

Doubt crept into her eyes and she chewed her lower lip as she studied us. The assassin and the mercenary were both unusually quiet. If I were to have picked which one would break first, I would have been right.

“Locke is correct,” Remington said. “We do have issues. We will, however, manage them and they won’t impact our work. You don’t need to worry about us.”

“Alright,” she said slowly, but despite my best effort, she clearly didn’t believe us. “If that changes, please read me in. I get that I am taking up a lot of oxygen in the conversation right now and I appreciate all of you for everything you have done. But if we’re a team, then we all have a voice.”

“No one here is arguing that,” McQuade told her. “You want coffee and food, right?”

“Coffee yes. Food can wait…” Then she sighed. “Or not because otherwise all three of you will hover, so something small and just make me whatever you are having. I should probably start volunteering to cook.”

“When you’re done with your part of the job,” Remington told her. “Right now, we need your brain on those tasks. We can handle the domestic chores for now. Locke, coffee. I’ll take care of food.”

“I guess I’ll just starve,” McQuade muttered.

“I have a faster way to kill you,” Remington offered in a low voice and I shot a look to where Patch had moved to her computer. The bruises were looking better but she didn’t seem to have caught that last.

“Bring it on, mate,” McQuade jabbed at him verbally.

“Stop calling me mate,” Remington ordered him in those same chilly tones.

“Stop it entirely,” I told them, with my back to Patch. These words really did not need to carry, at all. “I bought us time to resolve this without her being in the middle. At least respect it…”

They both gave me baleful looks.

“Or don’t, but if you keep it up, I will steal her away so she doesn’t have to deal with your shit.” With that said, I got the coffee grinder going. They didn’t say a word to me, but eventually, McQuade headed back to his own room and Remington got the food going.

I focused on the task at hand. Make her coffee, and keep things even so she could heal. That meant not fighting in front of her. These two could always beat the shit out of each other later…

I’d just finished her coffee when Patch said, “Holy shit…I found them.”

“Found—”

I didn’t get to finish because Remington was at her side, one hand on her chair as he stared at the computer.

“Section Five,” he said and I swore the floor fell out from under me.

“Section Five is a myth,” I argued. “A boogeyman to scare terrorists.” That was the rumor. They’d gotten very powerful in the years after 9-11. Homeland Security was supposed to facilitate communication between all the alphabet agencies, but Section Five had been composed of those who just didn’t play nicely with others.

A government-sanctioned operation that was utterly unscrupulous and buried so deeply, no one held them accountable.

“They aren’t a myth,” McQuade said as he rejoined us, still tucking his clean shirt into his fresh jeans. “They are the boogeymen, but they are no myth.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “You worked for them.”

“No,” he answered. “My father was one of the people who pushed for it to form in the first place.”

Fuck.