The Big Guns Read online

  Right now the shock on Johnnie’s face matched the fear on Sela’s. “I don’t know you,” Johnnie said.

  Zach forced his lungs to inflate, then slowly released his held breath. His gaze moved over her, checking for any sign of injury. A fierce bruise already marred her cheek. Her short skirt was hiked up high on her thighs, and it looked as if her scuffed pumps were the only things holding her tattered panty hose to her legs.

  Rage filled his brain until he had to fight the urge to kill Johnnie right there. Instead, Zach nodded in Sela’s direction with a studied coolness he didn’t feel. “Let her go.”

  Johnnie kept his arm locked around her slim throat as he held her just out of Zach’s easy reach. “This ain’t your business.”

  Johnnie’s gun shifted next to her face. Zach concentrated on the weapon so he didn’t have to see the confusion move over her.

  Yeah, she knew him. He could tell by the way her eyes narrowed and her mouth fell into a grim line. Identifying him sure didn’t mean she was happy to see him. She looked the exact opposite of relieved.

  And Zach could guess why. The Recovery Project made it a priority to discover everything about Trevor Walters and it would be dumb to assume he didn’t return the favor. Zach guessed his team’s photos were all over Trevor’s office and since Sela was Trevor’s assistant she knew all the details.

  “Put that thing down before you hurt her.” Zach issued the order as he plotted a way to inflict some hurt of his own on Johnnie.

  “Why do you get a say?”

  “Just do it.”

  “Do ya think you’re in charge?”

  Zach’s hand snaked out with lightning speed. He grabbed the barrel of Johnnie’s gun and snatched it away. With the other arm, Zach elbowed Johnnie under the jaw. The man’s head whipped back from the offensive strike, and he lost his grip on Sela. She spun to the side and landed on the dusty floor with a soft groan.

  Zach moved in. He slammed Johnnie in the nose with the heel of his hand. The sudden whack worked as planned. Johnnie howled in pain as blood spurted.

  “I’m in charge around here, Johnnie. Don’t forget it.”

  “Why did ya hit me?” The guy practically squealed the question.

  “You’re lucky that’s all I did.”

  “Did the boss really send you?”

  Zach treated Johnnie to a look of disgust. “Clean yourself up.”

  Johnnie crawled to his feet and grabbed for the dirty kitchen towel hanging over the faucet. “You broke my nose.”

  Hurting Johnnie felt good. Too good. Zach cursed his lack of control. He’d finally wrestled the animal part of him into submission only to find his hold weak.

  Sela picked that moment to make a mad dash for the door. The woman had a lousy sense of timing.

  She ducked low and tried to barrel past him. She might have made it, too, except he was ready. He knew she was a born fighter. He’d studied her, followed her and watched her day after day for weeks. The person who ordered her kidnapping might underestimate her survival instinct. Zach didn’t plan to make that mistake.

  He snatched her around her slim waist and lifted her into the air, pressing her back against the full length of his body with as gentle a touch as possible. “Whoa, you’re not going anywhere.”

  “Let me go.” Labored breathing strained her voice.

  When he squeezed her midsection, she let out a shocked yelp of distress. He turned her around so their noses almost touched. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  She pushed against him, her small fists knocking against his chest in a futile attempt to break free. “Don’t touch me.”

  Zach captured her hands in his and pulled her body tight against him. Each slope and contour of her fit him like a perfect puzzle piece.

  “Settle down,” he said.

  She ignored him. She grunted and shoved at him.

  “Are you hurt?” He conducted a visual tour, looking for signs of obvious injury.

  “What do you care?” Her eyes promised mutiny.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” Zach scowled at Johnnie where he leaned over the nearby sink, and once again debated killing him. “I’ll deal with you later.”

  Zach could not get off his game. Not yet. There would be time to talk and figure out why Johnnie picked today and who hired him, but this wasn’t it. Reacting to her distress would distract him and kill them both.

  “You touch her, Johnnie, you die. You understand me?”

  “Well, well, well.” Johnnie threw the stained towel in the sink. “Big man thinks he owns the woman.”

  Adrenaline pumped through Zach. His only thought was to protect Sela. That was his job. Didn’t matter if it was a formal operation or a self-imposed assignment. He’d taken on that role the second he started watching her.

  The blow came out of nowhere.

  One minute Johnnie skulked around, head down and shoulders slumped with a general air of defeat. The next he snarled like a wild animal. He aimed his full body weight for Zach’s stomach. Anticipating the hit, Zach moved to the side at the last minute and pushed Sela out of the fray.

  Johnnie didn’t stop. He launched a second strike. This one with fists. Zach blocked a wild punch and sent Johnnie spinning into the couch. Zach outweighed his attacker by a good thirty pounds and he had been trained to fight. Trained by the best to kill.

  A kick straight to the stomach and the fight ended with Johnnie rolling on the floor, holding his bruised ribs. In those precious final minutes of battle Zach feared he had gone over the edge, that his tenuous hold on his control had finally snapped, speeding him across that imaginary line between good and evil.

  Thinking about Johnnie hurting Sela torched Zach’s insides. He barely knew her, but that didn’t matter. There were some things a man didn’t do. Smacking a woman around was at the dead top of the list.

  Zach inhaled long and deep, hoping to calm the madness brewing inside of him. When his breathing returned to normal he tipped his head back against the wall and looked around the room.

  Sela was gone.

  “CARE TO TELL ME what that was about?” Luke Hathaway stood staring at the wall of computer monitors in the Recovery Project’s warehouse headquarters. With one hand balanced against the console, he hovered. He was good at hovering.

  Ever since Recovery had lost its government funding and disbanded as a quasi-official agency, it operated even deeper undercover. When Rod Lehman had disappeared—the man who’d handpicked the Recovery members and set the group’s mission—Luke had stepped up to serve as de facto leader.

  A serious injury to his shoulder made him a possible vulnerability to his fellow agents in the field. Not that he regretted the move that took away partial use of his arm since it happened while saving his wife, Claire, the love of his life and the person who now bankrolled the Recovery Project.

  But the change in financing meant no more fancy downtown Washington, D.C., offices with the fake cover of an antiques salvage operation. No more formal law-enforcement assistance. No more protection if they stepped too close to the line. That was all long gone. Now they had a nondescript beige warehouse by the southwest waterfront. It didn’t look like much but the technology inside rivaled that of any government intelligence agency thanks to Adam’s technical expertise.

  Being in command, taking the lead but often staying behind when the bullets started flying, let Luke play a major role without his unwanted disability causing a problem for his team. It also allowed him to focus and make sure the group’s original mission never changed. They specialized in finding missing people, those who were taken against their will and those who disappeared on purpose. Locating Rod, now presumed dead, was their main job and a constant source of frustration. They were experts, could find almost anyone, and they couldn’t find this one man who meant so much.

  Since they’d just come off a series of cases uncovering corruption in the Witness Security Program— WitSec—that left several of the program participants dead in a cas
h-for-information scheme by the very officials charged with protecting them, the Recovery agents were all exhausted. They were supposed to be taking a short break to regroup and figure out what role Trevor Walters, the very rich, very connected and very dirty owner of Orion Industries, played in the WitSec murders. And if he had a partner. Which meant Adam and Zach shouldn’t be handling an operation, and certainly shouldn’t being doing so without Luke’s involvement.

  The only reason Luke knew to get there this morning was his emergency alarm went off when the building’s tracking devices started humming. That meant either Adam was working instead of sleeping with his new girlfriend Maddie in the loft above the team’s workspace or someone had broken in. Either way, Luke had to move. He left his house in the capable hands of fellow team member Caleb Mattern, who was also in charge of watching over Claire and Caleb’s new wife, Avery. They were two women determined to help even if it meant danger, which made protecting them an even bigger challenge. But Caleb was up to the task.

  Skipping his usual morning coffee and a few extra hours in bed with his pregnant wife made Luke more than a little frustrated. Things would only get worse in a few minutes when the caffeine headache kicked in.

  “I’ll ask again. This obviously isn’t a drill since I didn’t schedule one, so what is Zach doing?” This time Luke loomed behind Adam, making sure he couldn’t move his chair without slamming into either the desk in front of him or Luke behind him.

  “You sure you want to know?”

  “Details.”

  When Adam tried to spin around this time, Luke stepped back. Adam’s lack of eye contact told Luke most of what he needed to know.

  “Someone grabbed Trevor’s assistant,” Adam said.

  “Sela Andrews?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “With Zach.”

  Luke blew out a long breath. “Okay, and where is he?”

  Adam glanced over his shoulder at the monitor. “Western Maryland. He hasn’t checked in since he left the car to get her, but his watch is on. I can hear everything.”

  “It’s bad?”

  “It’s not good, but Zach has it under control.” Adam cleared his throat. “For now.”

  “Get out there. I’ll take care of the communications on this end and watch over Maddie.” When Adam didn’t move, Luke motioned for him to get up.

  “I might not get there in time,” Adam said.

  “Go. Use back roads. Borrow a helicopter if you have to. Move in fast and keep talking so I know where you are.”

  Adam went to the weapons cabinet and typed in the security code. He loaded up with three guns, a knife and a bag of small explosives and headed for the door. He turned back right as the metal closure to the attached garage slid open. “Hey, Luke?”

  Luke didn’t look up from the monitors and their focus on the darkness around Zach’s car. “Yeah?”

  “Sorry we hid this one from you.”

  Luke understood. The drive to rescue was ingrained in the men he fought beside. So was the need to find Rod and have an answer, whatever it was.

  Other than Rod, the only person known to have information on the WitSec scam—the side job Rod was working on when he disappeared—was Trevor Walters. The one person close to Trevor was Sela. That made her a priority.

  Luke nodded. “Later Zach can give us all an explanation of why he was close enough to Sela to watch her get kidnapped.”

  “About that—”

  “Get the woman out alive and figure out who tried to snatch her and why. We’ll handle the rest once she’s safe.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just get there.” Luke made the statement to the silent room, but he knew Adam understood. One second too late and Zach would be a dead man.

  Chapter Three

  Sela raced into the dense woods off to the right of the cabin, wishing the sun would just rise already and shed some light on her path. Her thin heels dug into mud, her ankles twisting with each step. She ran blind, having no idea of direction or what she would do if she managed to reach anywhere else.

  The humid breeze pressed against her face, stealing her last breath. She gasped, her throat grabbing for air as the smell of pine filled her head. Through watery eyes she glanced back at the dilapidated cabin.

  Zach Bachman. She had a thick file on him sitting on the corner of her desk. She had one for every member of the Recovery Project. Trevor watched every move they made. He never explained why, but he did make it clear he respected the team’s resources. That didn’t mean he trusted them, and she followed his lead.

  Sela didn’t understand the benefit of keeping tabs on Zach and his fellow agents, but she did what she was told. She owed Trevor that much and now it paid off. She could identify one of the men fighting over her. She just hoped she lived long enough to turn Zach’s name over to the police. Let him explain what he was doing with Johnnie. So long as she was safe, she didn’t care.

  But stray thoughts kept hitting her even as she made her exit. Having Zach show up tonight made her wonder if he was one of the good guys or if he was with them. She didn’t even know who “them” was or why they wanted her, but she wasn’t stupid. Her employer, Orion Industries, specialized in threat management. They provided intelligence and paramilitary personnel to foreign governments and international corporations. Working for the owner made her a target.

  Those awful rumors about her being more than an employee only made things worse. She hadn’t understood that until she got hit in the head and kidnapped.

  She couldn’t afford to stick around now and try to put the pieces together. She certainly couldn’t be sure Zach would win this round. At six-foot-something, he had the advantage over the guy Johnnie. The sleek muscles peeking out under Zach’s black T-shirt also tilted the fight in his direction, but she wasn’t taking the chance that his broad chest and lethal reputation guaranteed a win. And she most definitely couldn’t be sure if he did win, he wouldn’t harm her. No, there were too many risks for her to trust anyone in that cabin.

  When her ankle twisted, she reached out to catch her balance and scraped her palm against rough bark. Half hiding, half leaning, she pressed her back against a tree and tried to get her bearings. She needed to find her internal compass. Figure out which way was north, or south, or any other direction that led out of there.

  A sharp smack echoed through the woods as the cabin door slammed open. A dark figure filled the entrance, but the light behind him plunged his face into shadows.

  She didn’t wait for another sign. Her brain flashed a message to her legs to move. She ran toward the dark lump in the distance, hoping it was a car or anything she could hide in. Twigs snagged her already ruined stockings and branches scraped against her forearms as she tried to protect her face.

  She ignored everything around her—all the sounds of shifting and moving coming from the dark woods—except the path beneath her feet. She absolutely had to stay on her feet.

  As soon as the thought entered her mind her right foot slid out from under her. Her upper body went into free fall. She put out her arms to lessen the impact and landed on all fours on the hard ground. Her kneecap suffered the brunt of the blow.

  She heard crunching and harsh breathing behind her and looked up in time to see the branches behind her shift to the side.

  “Sela, don’t move!” The harsh whisper echoed around her.

  Zach.

  She couldn’t see him, but she sensed him. Heard him. Short brown hair and a lean body that proved he had not gone soft since his days in the military. He’d found her.

  She tried to climb to her feet, but he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up as if she weighed little more than a kitchen towel. She kicked out her legs and fought him anyway.

  “Stop,” he ordered.

  That was never going to happen. The fear pumping through her had her keyed up and ready for battle. She called him every name she could think of.

  H
e coughed when she landed a heel in his shin. “I have parents.”

  She stilled. “What?”

  “They’re likely sitting on a sofa in Pennsylvania.”

  “I don’t—”

  “So that particular nickname you just called me doesn’t apply.”

  “You’re joking? Now?” Did he think it would calm her down? Because it did and the realization made her furious.

  “Do you have a better strategy?” he asked.

  “Yeah, we get out of here before Johnnie finds us.” Hope skipped through her. “Unless you killed him.”

  “First, keep your voice down.” Zach’s grip loosened but not enough for her to slip away. “Second, he’s very much alive. Bleeding and dumb as a stick, but alive.”

  For some reason, that struck her as the wrong answer. “Why?”

  Zach pressed a finger against his lips. “Quiet.”

  She batted away his hand. “Answer me. Why didn’t you just kill him and be done with it?”

  “Bloodthirsty little thing, aren’t you?”

  “I have no idea why you showed up when you did, but I’ve got to get out of here.” She lowered her voice when Zach scowled. “You can either help me or not, but I’m going.”

  When she started squirming again, he clamped her feet between his legs and trapped her arms by her sides. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “I’m going to hurt you.” She clenched her teeth together and strained her neck. She tried to lift her arms but his iron hold settled around her again.

  “Probably, but then you won’t have any way out of here. Now, stop.” Zach whispered his harsh command against her ear.

  She froze this time. No movement at all.

  “Are we leaving?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  Wrong answer. “When will you be?”

  “I’m still deciding the best way to proceed, but I can think of better places to spend an evening than with that guy.” Zach’s voice softened, but his grip sure didn’t.