Midnight Target by Elle Kennedy
Ash looked to his right and spotted the abuelas. “Nothing about this feels good, Holden.”
His unease only heightened when Liam checked in with an update.
“We searched her room. No signs of Mateo Rivera. Except . . .” Liam hesitated.
“Except what?” Noelle barked. She was positioned across town outside the hotel, making sure Liam and Sully didn’t encounter any unwelcome surprises.
“There was a message on the closet mirror,” Sullivan finally reported.
“What’d it say?” Noelle sounded impatient.
“‘Nice try, little girl.’”
Both Cate and Ash froze.
“Shit,” Noelle swore.
“The message is meant for me,” Cate mumbled. “He knows we’re tailing his wife.”
“Do we abort?” Ash asked.
“I think we have to,” Holden said grimly. “You’re coming up on a T intersection. Mrs. Rivera is heading left, which means she’s going in a huge fucking circle.”
“She’s playing games,” Noelle murmured. “It’s a trap. I’m calling this off.”
“I can send out my other drone,” Holden suggested. “Maybe we can—ah, fuck. Hold on. There’s someone coming up to talk to me. I—”
The feed went quiet.
“Holden?” Ash prompted.
There was nothing but silence on the other end.
“Holden. You there?” Sullivan demanded.
No answer.
The tiny hairs on Ash’s neck prickled. “We’re going back,” he announced.
“What about Camila?” Cate asked.
“You heard Noelle. We’re aborting.” And Holden still wasn’t fucking answering, damn it.
A good Marine never ignored his gut, and right now, Ash’s gut was waving every flag in the book to get his attention. Something was wrong.
Something was very, very wrong.
Chapter 28
As urgency pounded in his veins, Ash grabbed Cate’s arm and practically dragged her to the mouth of the alley. Rather than voice an objection, she fell into step with him and the two of them raced down the cracked sidewalk in the direction they’d come from. Fortunately, they were going downhill this time, making for a much easier trek back.
Ash couldn’t remember the exact alley where Holden had been parked. Somewhere near the bank, maybe a few blocks north of that. He ran faster, ignoring the startled faces of a trio of cigar-smoking men sitting on a nearby stoop. He and Cate sprinted past them, nearing the bank building at the corner of the intersection and—there it was. He remembered seeing that rusted metal newspaper dispenser by the entrance of the alley.
Relief flooded his gut when he spotted the black Range Rover. He lunged into the narrow lane, only to lurch into a standstill.
It was the amount of flies around the open car door that alerted him.
Oh fuck.
“What’s wrong—”
He flung out his arm and pushed Cate back before she could enter the alley. “Stay here,” he ordered, and hoped for once in his life she listened to him.
He jogged forward, pulling the gun out from under his shirt and keeping it tucked against his thigh. When he reached the car, his boots splashed in liquid. Sick to his stomach, he grimaced at the rust-colored puddle staining the pavement.
“What is it?” Cate called out.
“Stay there and don’t take any pictures.” He held up a hand. “Seriously, Cate. Just listen to me this one time. You don’t want to see this.”
Ash himself didn’t even want to look, but he forced himself to. His pulse buzzed in his ears as he stepped closer to the Rover, his stomach a tight knot of nerves. He’d seen dead men before. He’d watched fellow Marines die, held their bleeding, broken, often in-pieces bodies in his arms and listened to them utter their last words.
He knew all about death . . . and yet nothing had prepared him for the corpse that used to be Holden McCall.
Someone had slit Holden’s face, Joker style, from ear to ear. There were multiple stab wounds in the chest and arms. From the looks of it, at least a few of them were defensive. Holden’s gun lay in the backseat as if it’d been knocked out of his hand. Ash hoped some of the blood on the ground was from the tangos.
Choking down his horror, he edged closer and saw that Holden’s button-down shirt was gaping open, stained almost black from his blood. Then Ash’s eye caught something else—a coil of . . . something, at Holden’s boots. Was that a fucking snake? No, it . . . He leaned in even closer. It smelled like smoke . . . and meat.
Jesus Christ.
What he saw made his gorge rise. He backed up and took several deep breaths in an attempt not to throw up his breakfast.
“Ash?”
As his stomach continued to churn, he slowly turned around to face Cate, who’d crept up behind him.
She stared at him, wide-eyed, beautiful, and alive.
And suddenly he realized that the problem he had with Cate in the field didn’t have anything to do with her competence. It had to do with him. She could be the best trained, most skilled, and lethal operative on the planet and it would change nothing for Ash. She’d somehow become his reason for living, and if she wasn’t around, he didn’t want to be either.
He wasn’t going to be Morgan, who didn’t give a shit if Noelle went on a hundred missions. He wasn’t going to be Holden, who could somehow keep living after the loss of Beth.
Ash would never be able to survive it if something happened to Cate.
“Oh God,” she whispered, her gaze traveling to the SUV.
“Don’t look,” he bit out.
It was too late. Whatever she’d glimpsed had drained the color from her face. “He’s with Beth now,” she whispered.
“I sure hope so,” Ash said hoarsely.
“Rookie, we need a fucking report here,” Noelle snapped in his ear.
He drew another breath before replying. “Holden’s gone.”
“He abandoned his post?” Sully said irritably. “Where’d he go?”
“Nowhere.” Ash’s throat ached so badly it was hard to talk. “He’s gone. Dead. KIA.”
A shocked puff of air blew over the line. “Jesus,” Liam murmured.
Noelle broke the short silence with a harsh noise. “Get back to base. All of you. Now.”
Ash wasn’t about to argue. He wanted Cate out of this alley. Out of this city. Out of this goddamn country.
He approached her slowly, struggling for oxygen as he reached out for her with shaking hands. Then he pulled her against him and pressed one palm over her heart, nearly weeping when he felt the organ beating reassuringly beneath his palm.
But although she was breathing, Ash knew that the wave of fear that swept over him when he’d seen Holden’s guts lying in a scorched pool at his feet wasn’t going to subside until he had Cate under him, flesh to flesh.
* * *
It was hours later, nearing midnight, when Sullivan found himself alone in the dusty courtyard of the Guatana military base. He took a drag of his cigarette and sucked deep. Held the smoke in his lungs until they ached, then blew out a sputtering cloud that was instantly carried away by the humid air.
“I’m sorry about your friend.”
A heavily accented voice broke the silence as Timo Varela came up beside him. The courtyard served as a recreation area for the Guatanan soldiers, boasting a handful of picnic tables on which several chessboards and decks of cards lay abandoned. The men came here to gamble, smoke, and drink, but tonight the yard was deserted. Earlier, the base had received word of a shoot-out in the city, so most of the units stationed on base had been dispatched to deal with the rival gangs.
“Thanks,” Sully mumbled in response. “Holden was a good man.”
He might not have had contact with Holden for more than four years,
It was just a damn shame that nobody had been there today to save his.
“Morgan made it back to Costa Rica safe and sound, eh?” Varela hopped up on the picnic table next to Sully. “I assume the rest of you will be moving out soon?”
He smiled wryly. “Eager to get rid of us, huh? Don’t worry, I get it. Our presence here makes all of you a target.”
Varela gave a wry smile of his own. “We were a target of the cartels long before you got here.”
Sully took another drag.
“They don’t like that Guatana has a military to protect it,” the commander went on. “They don’t want there to be opposition while they rip our country to shreds.” He swiped the cigarette from Sullivan’s fingers and took a quick puff. “You’re better off getting the hell out of this country.”
Varela tried handing the cigarette back. When Sully shook his head, the other man smoked it down to a nub before flicking the butt on the dirt.
“I’m tempted to leave myself,” the commander admitted, wearily hopping to his feet.
“Why don’t you?”
“This is my home. I plan on protecting it until my dying breath.” Anger tightened his angular features. “But men like Rivera and Barrios and all the other cartel slime, all they care about is money, power. And they have enough of both to sway the government into doing their bidding. They’ve even turned high-ranking military officials to their way of thinking. How do I stand a chance against that?”
Sully didn’t have an answer, but it was obvious Varela was speaking rhetorically.
Sighing, the man said, “Have a good night, friend.” Then he ambled off toward the building behind them.
Sully forced himself to get up too. He couldn’t sit out here all night. But he also had no desire to go inside and see everyone’s stricken faces as they grieved for their old friend.
To his relief, every door was closed when he walked into the barracks. He entered his room and found Liam in bed, lying there in the darkness.
“Hey,” came a gruff voice.
“Hey,” Sully answered. He stripped naked and stretched out on the other mattress, propping one arm behind his head and resting his other forearm over his eyes.
“Ethan and Juliet flew out an hour ago with Holden’s body.”
“Montana?”
“Yeah. His parents still live there. And that’s where Beth is buried. They’ll probably bury him beside her.”
He fell silent for a beat. “He should have had backup.”
“We’re spread thin,” was Liam’s bleak response. “There was no one available.”
As frustrating as it was to hear, Sully couldn’t argue. They were spread thin. Bailey and the Reillys had gone to New York with Isabel and Trevor. Everyone else had rushed off to protect their families. With him, Liam, and Noelle at the hotel, Cate and Ash in the market, and Ethan and Juliet watching Benicio Rivera, the team had been too shorthanded to provide Holden with the necessary backup.
Still, it ripped Sullivan apart to think that Holden had been ambushed by those cartel killers. That he’d died alone.
“Get some sleep,” Liam advised. “We can regroup tomorrow.”
He closed his eyes, but sleep didn’t come. He just stared up at the speckled ceiling, grief weighing on his heart. His mind continued to race with thoughts of Holden, of Rivera, of the argument with Liam at the hotel. The angry accusations they’d hurled at each other.
Liam was wrong, though. Sully wasn’t afraid of getting close to people. He did it all the time, for fuck’s sake. Maybe he didn’t have any biological relatives but he absolutely considered the team his family.
His aversion to relationships had nothing to do with fear either. After Evangeline’s death, nobody had been able to hold his interest for more than a few weeks. So, what, he should purposely lead his lovers on? Screw that. Better to keep things casual right off the bat. That way nobody got hurt.
It had nothing to do with fear. He was just being considerate.
Tamping down his agitation, he rolled onto his side and tried to get comfortable. He heard Liam’s steady breathing but wasn’t sure if the other man was asleep.
We’ll regroup tomorrow.
Would they? What the fuck did tomorrow mean anyway? Holden had probably woken up this morning thinking he’d have a tomorrow, and now he was fucking dead.
With a strangled noise, Sully sat up in bed.
“Everything okay?”
He ignored the drowsy-voiced question and weakly climbed off the mattress. His bare feet carried him the five steps required to eliminate the distance between the two beds.
“What are you doing?” Liam sounded startled when Sully slid in beside him.
“Kissing you,” he mumbled, then cupped the back of Liam’s head and brought their mouths together.
A feeling of rightness washed over him. Yeah. Kissing Liam was so much better than thinking about Holden and his lack of tomorrows. So much better than thinking, period.
His pulse sped up when the tip of Liam’s tongue flicked over his. The kiss started off tentative, slow, the light brush of lips and lazy swirl of tongues, but it wasn’t long before it transformed into something hot and desperate. Liam’s hand curled around Sully’s neck while they tried to eat each other’s faces off. As need slammed into Sully’s body, fast and hard, he rolled Liam over and climbed on top of him.
He wasn’t worried about crushing the guy. At six-two and one hundred and eighty pounds of pure muscle, Liam could handle whatever Sully gave him. And he gave it back with equal force, his fingers biting hard into Sullivan’s hips as the two men ground their lower bodies together. Their mouths were still fused, tongues slicking feverishly as heavy panted breaths heated the air.
“This is probably a bad idea,” Liam grunted, yet his hands were already sliding down to cup Sully’s ass.
Sully jerked when he felt the rough squeeze. “I’m the master of bad ideas,” he muttered before burying his face in Liam’s neck. He inhaled the scent of citrus and soap and man, kissed that strong column of flesh, and then licked a path back to Liam’s mouth.
His friend groaned when their lips met again. Sully rotated his hips and the torturous friction of his bared cock rubbing against Liam’s covered one sent both arousal and impatience streaking through him. He wanted them skin to skin, damn it.
Growling, he hooked his fingers under the elastic of Liam’s boxers and peeled the fabric away. His mouth flooded with moisture when a long, thick cock was exposed to his gaze. Another bolt of desire shot through him, pushing him to action. He eagerly closed his fist around the velvety smooth shaft, eliciting a low moan from the man beneath him.
“We really shouldn’t do this,” Liam mumbled.
“Yes, we should.” He peered down, a lump of regret forming in his throat. “Life is short, mate. We have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow. Might as well take advantage of tonight.”
He didn’t know if it was the philosophical words that caused Liam to surrender, or if it was the way Sully tightened his grip around the man’s dick. Didn’t matter, because Liam was suddenly thrusting into his hand, features creased in desperation.
Chuckling, Sully lowered his head and took the thick shaft into his mouth, getting it nice and slick with his tongue. His own dick was an iron spike, throbbing, twitching, pleading for attention. He pushed his hips into the mattress in an attempt to bring himself some hint of relief, rocking slowly as he continued to suck. Hard and fast, summoning tortured noises from Liam’s throat.
“Jesus fuck, Sully. You trying to kill me?”
Liam groaned again. “I didn’t realize it was a race to the finish, literally.”
“I’ve been wanting to make you come again for two bloody days, mate.” He gave a sharp stroke of the hand. “So now shut the fuck up and give me what I want.”
His friend must have been just as on edge as he was because it didn’t take long for Liam to come apart. A few more sucks, the swirl of tongue around the head, and Liam was shuddering in climax.
Salty flavor coated Sullivan’s tongue and he lapped it up readily, quickly, not wanting to waste a single drop. Normally he took his time with sex. He was all about the foreplay, drawing out sensations until both parties were sweaty, gasping messes begging for release. Tonight, he was impatient. He was so hard it hurt, and each frantic thump-thump of his heart brought with it a hot bolt of excitement.
As the other man recovered from the orgasm, Sully hopped off the bed and walked over to the duffel bag he’d left near the door. He unzipped it, stuck his hand inside, and rummaged around until he found what he was looking for.
Liam raised a brow when he noticed what Sully was holding. “Seriously? You travel with lube?”
“Have you ever known me to not travel with lube?”
That got him a choked laugh. “Good point.”
He wasted no time crawling back onto the bed and reaching for Liam again. He flipped him over onto his stomach and sat astride him.
It took a few seconds to realize that Liam was frozen in place. “What’s wrong?” Sully murmured.
There was a beat. “Nothing.”
“You sure?”
“Ah . . . yeah. It’s fine.”
“Good,” he ground out. “Because I really need to fuck you now.” Again, he didn’t miss the way Liam’s back tensed. As a pang of doubt hit him, he smoothed a hand over the man’s muscular ass. “Unless you don’t want me to . . . ?”
“No . . .” Liam sucked in an audible breath. “No, I do.”
Thank God. Thank God. Sully could’ve been satisfied with a BJ or a handie—either would have succeeded in releasing the tension coiled tight in his balls—but he knew he’d come harder in the tight sheath of Liam’s ass. A shiver ran through him at the mere thought. Christ, it had been so long since he’d fucked someone. The fact that he was about to fuck Liam only heightened the anticipation.