Jamison.
When he’d landed the bird on that roof, the pretty little doctor had sure been the last person he’d expected to see. But she’d spun toward him, her eyes wide and desperate behind the lenses of her glasses, and he’d realized that he was in some serious trouble.
She’d known who he was. Without even seeing his face, Tina had known. Maybe his voice had given him away. He hadn’t bothered to change accents with this particular group. He’d just wanted them to think he was a slow-talking, ex-soldier from Mississippi. A man with a grudge against the government. A man willing to do just about anything for cash.
Tina’s face had lit with hope when she’d seen him. Such a beautiful face it was, too. He’d found himself admiring it more and more during his visits to the doc at the main EOD office. She’d been all business, of course, checking his vitals, talking to him about stress in the field.
He’d been imagining her naked.
Before the blades had stopped spinning, Lee Slater was already out of the chopper and dragging Tina with him. The jerk still had that gun far too close to her for Drew’s peace of mind.
How am I supposed to get her out of here?
With narrowed eyes, Drew watched Tina and Lee vanish into the main house. More armed men followed them inside.
They were in the middle of Texas, at a dot on the map that most folks would never find. It wasn’t as if the cops were just going to rush in and rescue the kidnapped woman.
He was deep undercover. Working under the alias of Stone Creed. The men here—they were looking to cause as much chaos on U.S. soil as they possibly could. They were into drugs, into weapons and into wrecking the political powers that be.
And, in particular, it seemed that the men were looking to take out the EOD. Or, more specifically, they wanted to destroy Bruce Mercer.
Drew climbed from the chopper and checked his own gun.
“Can you believe it?” the excited voice asked from behind him.
Drew looked back just as Carl Monroe yanked off his ski mask. Yeah, that mask wasn’t exactly necessary anymore. Not since they were back on their own turf. They didn’t have to worry about unwanted eyes seeing them here.
Carl grinned. “We got the EOD director’s daughter!”
No, they hadn’t. Drew swallowed. Bruce Mercer did have a daughter, all right, but that daughter wasn’t Tina Jamison.
What would happen when the men realized that they’d taken the wrong woman?
She will become a dead woman.
He couldn’t let that happen. He’d been sent in to gather intel on this group, to determine just how much of a threat the individuals known as HAVOC posed—and, once his assessment had been made, his team was supposed to eliminate that threat.
It sure looked as if his timetable had just been accelerated.
“She sure is pretty,” Carl said. Like Lee, Carl was a Texas boy, born and bred. He was also very, very dangerous. Carl liked to use his knife—often. And, according to his file, Carl enjoyed watching his victims slowly die from their knife wounds. Torture and pain were all part of Carl’s twisted package.
“You should have seen her,” Carl continued, voice thickening, “when we found her in that hotel room. She was all tousled and—”
Drew whirled on him. “Are you going to help me secure the chopper?” His words rapped out. Fury had coiled in his gut. No way, no damn way, should Tina have been put at risk like this. At his first opportunity, he had to contact the other EOD agents assigned to the HAVOC mission. They needed to work an immediate extraction on her.
And if they didn’t, then he would.
Carl’s smile stretched. “You thought she was pretty, too, didn’t you? It’s those glasses... Sexy.”
He wanted to drive his fist into Carl’s face.
But Carl turned away and went to work on the chopper.
Drew exhaled slowly as he tried to bring his control back in check. He was still the new guy in this crew. Useful because he could fly anything—and kill anyone instantly. Sure, his dossier had been faked, but his skills were plenty real enough.
During his time in Delta Force, Drew had been turned into a lethal fighting machine. He didn’t need a weapon to take out a dozen men. He could do that just with—
A scream cut the night. Her scream.
Drew was running toward the main house before he could even think about his response.
The door was shut, so he just kicked his way right through it. The wood banged against the wall.
“Don’t!” Tina yelled. “Please, I—”
Her cry was abruptly cut off.
Drew felt the familiar ice encase his fury. That was the way it had always been for him. When it came time for a battle, he went ice-cold. No emotion. No room for mistake.
He’d been called a robot by some of his teammates before.
He’d been called a hell of a lot worse by his enemies.
Why had Tina stopped screaming?
Another door was in front of him. A tall, blond guy with a gun at his hip tried to block Drew’s path. “Stone, man, I don’t think they want you right now.”
Drew shoved the guy out of his way. He went in that room.
The first thing he saw was the blood. Fat drops that were sliding down Tina’s arm. Lee Slater stood next to her, a knife in his hand. “I think that’s what we need.”
In his mind, Drew saw himself rushing across the room and breaking the guy’s wrist. The knife would clatter to the floor, falling from Lee’s slack fingers. With him out of commission, Drew would turn on the other two men there. He could have them all on the floor in less than a minute.
But he didn’t attack. Not yet. Because he’d been given very specific orders from Bruce Mercer.
The job was top priority. The fear was that these men—men from the U.S., from Mexico and from parts of South America—had access to classified government intel. There had been a leak at the EOD just months before, and they were still tracking to determine just how much information had been taken from headquarters.
They’d followed the trail to HAVOC. Drew was supposed to be days away from meeting the group’s leader.
Days.
Getting an up-close audience with the man named Anton Devast wasn’t an easy task. Those who got close usually wound up getting killed.
Drew locked his jaw. “Why’d you cut her?”
They’d cut Tina and gagged her. The gag would explain why she’d stopped screaming. Damn it, the gag had been his suggestion, but he’d only said it to clue her in to the fact that she needed to stay quiet about him.
Her eyes—so green and bright—found his. There was a desperate plea in her gaze.
A plea that he couldn’t answer right then. Not if they wanted to both keep living.
“I was just showing her,” Lee said softly, “what would happen if she tried to escape. We can treat her well...” He lifted the knife. Blood coated the blade. “Or we can make this little stay turn into her worst nightmare.”
A tear leaked down Tina’s cheek. She had high cheekbones, a slightly pointed chin and the cutest damned nose with its spray of freckles.
Normally her face was full of soft color and life.
Right then, fear had etched its way across her face. He didn’t like for Tina to be afraid. Not one bit.
“You showed her,” Drew growled. “She got