Operation Love, page 2
“Grim—”
She took a deep breath to calm her heart. “Nice to know how you feel. Don’t worry, I won’t bother you again. I guess I should have gotten the hint since you hadn’t answered a single one of my calls. Stupid me thinking we could be friends.”
She really didn’t want to cry in front of her boss. Everyone at the company thought she locked her emotions down deep, and she did except when it came to Casanova. The man weaseled his way into her heart.
“We have a meeting in the conference room,” Xavier said breaking the tension.
A mission was exactly what she needed to get her mind off Casanova. For once she wouldn’t mind even heading to the sandbox for a few weeks. She turned and left, not getting to do her daily run. She heard him say her name a second time as the door shut behind her, but there was nothing left to say.
The conference room was empty when she took her usual seat on the far right. It gave her a good view of everyone in the room. She pulled out her phone and clicked the Angry Birds app. Time moved slowly as she waited for the team to arrive in the state-of-the-art meeting area. Work used to bring her joy because it would give her a mission—a reason to do good in the world and make up for the crap she did years ago.
The double doors opened when Xavier and Casanova walked in, and of course he took the chair next to her.
She could only hope they would get separate missions because it crushed her when he’d refused to talk to her since waking up in the hospital. The damn man had almost died on the sidewalk and told her he loved her with blood trickling down the corner of his mouth. Then like a switch he cut their connection.
The doors opened again and Seth, the insanely brilliant engineer Carter had held captive, hobbled in with a cane. Next to him was Brittany, the bitch she still wanted to kill. Brittany had searched for her husband Seth for years. She didn’t care who she hurt along the way including Rose, her own sister. Brittany had sent them the location of Carter, but they were told to bring Rose along. She still didn’t know how the woman could use her own sister as a pawn to get her husband back. Grim liked to look at all angles and figure out a way to save everyone.
Brittany’s heels clicked against the marble floors. She wore a form-fitting black dress. Her blonde hair was up in a bun, and she had a hand on her husband.
Grim squeezed the pen in her hand. It was the only thing that stopped her from grabbing the gun holstered to her side.
Brittany and Seth took a seat next to Lucas, the Chief Information Officer. Xavier could give them all the fancy titles he wanted; it still came down to the fact Lucas was a hacker, and she was an assassin, except her formal title was Senior Agent.
“Everyone is here. Let’s get started,” Xavier said. His light brown hair was still wet from the shower he’d just taken. He’d changed from the workout clothes. Now he had on one of his priceless suits. He’d made money from running Rogue Mercenaries, but he’d also acquired a fortune from his family’s shipping business, Smith Trade. Which she knew for a fact since her oldest brother Archie was the CFO.
Xavier continued. “I know everyone has seen pictures over the last seven months, but this is Brittany and her husband, Seth. They’ve agreed to assist.”
“And we trust them?” Grim was the first to ask.
Casanova hadn’t said a word or looked up from the folder he had open in his hands.
Xavier turned to her. Many cowered under her boss’s stare, but she remembered a time he would do anything his mom asked.
“Grim, I’m not here to ask them to have dinner with me. Taking Carter down only removed a small thorn in our sides. I want the fuckin’ bush, and if that means I must sit in a room with people I don’t fully trust, I will, because we need information. Seth was deep in the operation for years.”
“When you care about someone more than your next breath, you do crazy things. Sending the text for you to show up at the warehouse was a bad idea. It cost you a team member and Casanova...I don’t even know where to start,” Brittany said.
Grim glanced to the side and saw his square jaw tick. He’d shaved off the long beard he’d grown while in the hospital, but he had a little stubble Grim wanted to reach out and run her fingers against but stopped herself.
Casanova finally spoke, his words coming out clipped. “You did what you thought was right. It’s not the first time a woman crossed me. But what you did put a lot of things into perspective. Now, what do you have?”
Part of her wanted to ask who the other woman was she’d never crossed him. Asked him to help with the mission that cost him his career, yes, but she’d told him all the info upfront. Maybe she didn’t know him as much as she thought she did.
Seth leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. He was still extremely skinny from Carter starving him. “San Diego was only one of the multiple facilities I worked at over the years. They tried to keep the engineers, scientists, and other prisoners in separate locations. I assume so they wouldn’t lose everyone at once.”
Casanova’s brows shot together, and he tapped his finger on the folder. “The list inside said you guys were building chemical warfare. What was your part in this?”
Seth didn’t answer. Instead, Lucas hit a couple of buttons on his computer, and a four-inch device appeared in the middle of the screen. “It’s like a homing device on steroids.”
“Homing devices aren’t something new. I thought Carter would go after something new,” Grim added.
Seth got up from the chair, limped to the front of the room, and pointed to the tip of the black device. “The technology he wanted, I developed is here, on the tip. This homing device has a GPS tracker and thousands of sensors.”
Drake, one of their new teammates, sat near the screen and raised his hand like they were back in school. Seth nodded in his direction.
“Sorry, I joined the Army because I wasn’t good at school. Do you expect me to understand this? All I want to know is where to find whoever we are after.”
She agreed the engineering lesson didn’t explain why she was in the room. Whoever they’d sold it to already had it.
“I assume they are getting to that point,” Casanova said before he waved his hand at the screen. “Can you go into a little more detail for me? What brand of GPS did you use and what do the sensors account for?”
Seth’s smile went from ear to ear. “You know the military’s GPS sucks. The GPS in your phone isn’t great, either. When you’re in the middle of the arctic or over the desert, the signal isn’t the greatest. I was able to develop a GPS that is always exactly spot on to the millimeter anywhere in the world. The sensors relay weather conditions to the navigation on the bomb so it knows to speed up or slow down. This makes it possible to hit a target no matter the conditions.”
Casanova clicked his tongue. “Let me guess, the sensors also can detect any type of shift toward it, including if another missile tries to shoot it down, making it an impossible target to eliminate.”
“I’m impressed,” Seth said. “How did you figure that out?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He grunted. “So, how many have you built, and where are the plans?”
Seth wobbled forward and rested his hip against the table. “I built two. One was on the bomb Xavier’s team already found. A large shell of a corporation owns the second one. I never met the man who ran it, and I only saw him a couple of times. He was one of Carter’s bosses.” Seth slumped down into the chair. “The plans are on the servers Carter used. I kept everything deconstructed in separate folders, but if they get a good enough engineer, they’ll be able to figure out how to put it all together and build it. This means there will be a missile out there they can release there will be no way to shut it down. They don’t even need to care about the weather because the device considers wind, rain, and any other element that might slow it down.”
“There’s movement in Chicago. Many of the bigger players in the arms industry flew in.” Lucas flipped the screen to a charity auction for at-risk kids.
Brittany cleared her throat. “I overheard Carter talking about this event, and how when he turned over the technology, he was about to get brought into the fold.”
Xavier leaned forward. “From what we can tell, this fundraiser is a front for an underground arms deal. Two private jets landed today. Nikolai Dargo was on one, and Ali Muhammad was on another.”
They were two men well-known for gun running. Grim had taken Nikolai’s father out seven years ago on his yacht. The kill did nothing to slow down his business.
“So, we crash the event and see what we can find,” she said, not understanding why he didn’t just hand her a mission report before she jumped on the company jet.
Xavier pulled out two cards from his folder and slid them both across the table, one to her and one to Casanova.
“You two are going as newlyweds.” He paused and likely waited for her to say fuck off.
She would wait until she was alone in the room with her boss to explain why this was a bad idea.
Xavier continued. “Lucas has already crafted your cover. You’re looking to buy the technology for a country named Shailia. The queen’s husband and I crossed paths a few times over the years. He’s on board with this. The country has the money and backing to pull off the buy. The cover we crafted is that Jared Dawson is a broker in the arms business and is doing the deal for Queen Blackwood.”
Casanova motioned to the folder. “Is our complete background in there?”
Xavier nodded. “I brought Seth in so he can tell you guys how to disable this device if you find it.”
“Wait, you want us to disable a bomb?” she asked. The CIA had taught her how to do that years ago, but they were small bombs, nothing on a nuclear level. This might be the first mission she felt uncomfortable with, and not only because she was supposed to be Casanova’s wife.
Lucas flipped the screen back to the black device. “You don’t need to disable the bomb, only destroy this device. This way, if it goes off, it can still be shot down and the technology can’t be replicated.”
She didn’t think his explanation helped much. The idea of being in the same room as a bomb didn’t sit well with her. She preferred to wait for the perfect shot and eliminate the bad guy. She’d never had a mission where she gathered intel or dismantled a device.
“Did you build a way to deactivate it?” Casanova asked, getting up from his chair. His leg brushed against her, and it was the first time they had made any contact since she held his hand while he bled out on the sidewalk. Except he didn’t stop and analyze the touch. He strode to the front of the room and stared at the screen.
“Can you see here?” Seth pointed to the back of the object.
Casanova nodded.
“Okay, if you take a small screwdriver, you can remove a tiny screw. Then all you need to do is push a pin through the hole, and it will short the board and fry the device.”
“And where do we find this device?” Grim asked, still unsure about the mission.
Seth winced. “Well, that might be a little trickier. When you find the bomb, you’ll need to remove the side panel and dismantle the small keypad, and under that is the device I created. I’m sure you can handle it.”
That was what the YouTube video she’d watched stated about IKEA furniture. The damn bookcases were still in pieces, along with her desk. Each of those items had instructions. They were getting sent in to dismantle a bomb with no instructions or guide, and it wasn’t like she could watch a video online before they left for Chicago.
“Are there any sensors I need to worry about?” Casanova asked.
Xavier shook his head. “You’re only to ruin the device. Don’t worry about dismantling the bomb.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Casanova said. “I think being alone with the bomb will be the most difficult part.”
Did this man not understand the task?
“You think we can disable a bomb? Are you crazy?”
He turned his light blue eyes on her. “It won’t be the first time I worked on one, and I understand the concept.”
She swallowed, realizing he’d spoken to her for the first time in months.
“Great.” Xavier stood. “One last thing. Can you throw up the picture of who we think Carter’s boss is?”
An image of a man in his early forties flashed up on the screen. Grim’s day just got worse. Sage Mason’s hair was now showing gray, and his dark brown eyes were close to black. The scar on the left side of his face had faded.
God, she hated the man. She didn’t open her mouth because nobody knew about her connection to him, and she didn’t want to talk about how he’d fucked her over.
Lucas’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Sage has ties to the CIA and works as a US Senator currently. All the intel we gathered on Carter showed links back to someone in the government helping him. Seth was able to give us a description, and confirmed when we showed him a picture of Sage. We aren’t sure how high up Sage is, but we need you to get close to him.”
Xavier looked her dead in the eye. “Can you do that?”
Fuck, did he know she had been forced to marry him?
“I can do my job.”
“Great, your plane leaves in a few hours. I already had a dress and tux sent to your hotel for the event.”
Brittany and Seth were the first two to leave, followed by Drake. Lucas grabbed his laptop and his stack of candy and strolled out of the room.
“Boss, you think this is a good idea?” Grim asked Xavier.
Casanova turned and looked at her. “It’s a job.”
“You’ve begged me for a dangerous op for months. Do you not want this mission because of Casanova, or is it because of Sage?” Xavier leaned back with his arms crossed, a smirk across his face. “I know everything about you. You think I didn’t know the reason I had to disentangle you from the CIA? As for your cover, you work for me, and the queen hired us because I know her husband.”
Grim ran her hand over the scar on the top of her arm from the night she’d blacked out and woke up to her career in shambles because Sage had fucked up her assassination and the wrong person had died. She didn’t want to admit out loud another one of her failures in life.
“Why would Sage be an issue?” Casanova asked.
Grim closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Because he’s my ex-husband.”
Casanova stared her down. “Will it affect the mission?”
She shook her head.
“Then let’s do our job.” He turned toward the exit, his back rigid as he strode through the glass doors.
Xavier tilted his head to the side. “I think this mission will be good for you, Grim. You’re not the only one facing demons right now.” He tapped his finger on the table before he continued. “Casanova is dealing with personal issues, and he doesn’t feel like he’s good enough. Chicago is a dark place for him. You both deserve happiness, but you’re both too pig-headed to try.”
Grim blinked. “I tried love once and he died.”
“But Casanova is not your late husband and I know you never loved your ex-husband. You need to decide what you want.” Xavier stood and left her alone in the room.
Grim had held Casanova at arm’s length for the last two years. Then, when he’d almost died, she’d wanted him. Now, he pushed her away. He had spent two years chasing her and not giving up; she’d given up on him after a few months.
She gathered her things from the table and planned in her head how to win Casanova back. She was about to flip the playbook.
Maybe it was time to take what she wanted. Casanova would learn what happened when she put her mind on a target. No wouldn’t be an answer.
With new determination, she strode through the front doors of Rogue Mercenaries and down the sidewalk. Casanova stood at the edge of the parking lot, his eyes trained on his cellphone.
She gazed down his body and noticed a red dot dancing in the center of his shirt. “Move!”
His head whipped up as she sprinted down the narrow path. He staggered back. His foot slipped on the side of the cement walkway, and he tumbled into the row of bushes. A bullet struck the window a foot away. When Xavier had upgraded the building to bulletproof glass. She’d told him he was paranoid.
The red dot hovered over the leaf near Casanova. She leaped through the air and landed on him. Her legs spread across his hips as she protected his body.
“Someone is shooting at you.”
They hunched down behind the row of bushes, which were the worst type of cover.
“Why the hell did you put yourself in harm’s way?” he hissed.
She ignored him, curled her fingers around his, and tugged him toward the side entrance of the building. The red dot appeared on her hand, and she jerked them forward, causing Casanova to ram into her back.
“We need to get inside,” she whispered.
A second shot hit an inch above the keycard device before she swiped her key and threw the door open.
The door slammed behind them as third shot hit the metal handle.
They were both panting as they stared out the bulletproof glass door.
She didn’t glance in his direction as she asked, “Who the hell just shot at you?”
3
Casanova
Casanova’s head rested against the leather seat. He enjoyed flying in Rogue Mercenaries’s private jet a hell of a lot more than the flights he’d had to take as a SEAL. His six-foot-four frame had never fit well in the back of the commercial plane, and he sure as hell hated sitting in the middle seat.
He’d flown all over the globe when he was a SEAL. The moment they’d returned from a hard mission, he’d jump in his truck and hit the road. Many times, he drove until his eyes became heavy. He’d done this for years, traveled to almost every state, but he avoided Illinois at all costs.
