Wicked Intentions (Steele Secrurity Book 4) (14 page)

“I did hear Liz yelling something about running him a nice, hot bubble bath,” Noah offered and quirked one eyebrow.

“For the sake of national security and the lives of all the civilians, we must do a thorough investigation. Talk to everyone in the city if necessary.”

“Thought that may help you make up your mind.”

A few minutes later, Silas walked out of the woods and straight to the car. The others joined him, retaking their original seats and waiting until they were out of the park before speaking. All eyes scanned the area as they left, ever vigilant of who and what was in their peripheral vision.

“There are a few guys a little too interested in us,” Noah remarked.

“Undercover Vice,” Silas replied. “They haven’t quite mastered the art yet, have they?”

“Not quite. For the average thug, they’re good enough. For a professional, they’re too obvious.”

“Maybe we should start a new company and train them in the ways of the invisible?” Silas suggested.

“Not a bad idea.”

“All right, let’s hear it. What’d your spook friend have to say?” Rebel asked.

“I never said he was a spook.” Silas cut his eyes to the rearview mirror. “But whatever’s about to go down is huge. We can’t screw this one up, boys. The chatter on the ground is Rashad has a large-scale attack planned and his cell is recruiting heavily.”

“Large-scale, as in what? Are we talking nuclear, chemical, what?” Bull asked.

“They’re still trying to figure it out. They’ve intercepted coded messages and signals that they’re trying to decipher.”

“Get them. I’m trained to analyze them,” Rebel replied. “Maybe I can crack the puzzle.”

“I’ll see what I can do. The things he’s asking for don’t align with anything nuclear. I wouldn’t discount the possibility of a chemical or biological attack, though.”

Noah’s cell started ringing, and a smile covered his face. “It’s Shadow. Wonder if Liz has him in that bubble bath yet.” He smirked before answering. “Yeah, man, what’s up?”

The silence in the car became deafening just before the tension notched up tenfold. The laughter immediately dissipated, each man attuned to the others’ moods and mannerisms, acting and reacting as a single unit.

“I’m putting you on speaker. Say that again, Shadow.”

“Another letter was delivered to the nurses’ station, and we had it brought to a nearby restaurant by courier. I met him and just got back into the room to read the letter. This one is addressed to Steve.

“
B
rad checked
the hospital security system, and it was definitely Rashad. He was wearing a uniform that looked like maintenance, but it doesn’t have the hospital logo on it. It’s just close enough to blend in and not be questioned by most people. I’ve put one of our men on Steve’s room and another undercover in the hospital.”

“You know what this means, right?” Rebel asked.

“What?” Bull replied.

“First letter was to Heather. Second letter is to Steve. Brianna and Chaise are next. Maybe even Sara. He’s going through our families to get to us,” Rebel replied. “He’s already signed his own death warrant. Now he’s making it personal, and he’s pissing me off.”

“You mean we finally get to see Rebel get mad?” Shadow jeered. “This should be good. We’ll even have front-row seats to this show.”

“Should we move your dad?” Joe asked.

“We can’t just yet. He’s too sick as it is, and the medications for his clinical trials are there. We’ll have to alert the local FBI and law enforcement so they can help with hospital security. If he’s after our dad, he could take out half the hospital to get to him,” Silas answered.

“Hey, Reap. Brad’s program just finished running, and he’s all excited about some information he uncovered. Says it’s very important, and we need to get over there as soon as possible so he can translate his geek speak to regular English,” Shadow interjected.

“We’re on our way over there now. Get Heather and meet us at HQ. Park inside the garage, then Rebel can get her back to their house later when it’s dark,” Noah replied. “We’ll be there within twenty minutes.”

“Copy that. We’re leaving now.”

T
he large
, two-story house on the street behind Rebel and Heather’s house served as the headquarters for the team. By the time Noah and the others arrived, Roman, Alex, and Blake had finished their patrol of the neighborhood. With the miniature cameras in place to capture every possible angle around Rebel’s house, they were confident any attempts made by Rashad’s cell would be seen and quickly thwarted.

Brad had arranged to have furniture delivered by a team of agents who appeared to be everyday movers. The large truck sat parked by the curb for half a day while he pretended to oversee the correct placement of boxes and belongings. To anyone watching, he was simply a new neighbor waiting for the rest of his family to join him in their new home. Undercover crews arrived in nondescript construction company trucks with what appeared to be replacement sheets of drywall and a new door. A quick and simple repair job that would be quickly forgotten after a passing glance from anyone in the vicinity.

Inside those moving boxes, hidden underneath what appeared to be normal household items, was the most high-tech, military-grade equipment available. With each item Brad unpacked, he created an impressive control room in a virtually impenetrable fortress in the expansive entertainment room. The interior walls were lined with bullet-resistant panels, the wooden door was replaced with a steel door and frame, and computer monitors with a continuous display of the entire street covered the L-shaped workstation in the corner.

A large table sat in the middle of the room for the team to scour the original construction blueprints of the subdivision layout. New secure cell phones were laid out for each member of the team. The cells came complete with signal-jamming capabilities and direct chat features over constantly changing radio frequencies to prevent detection in the event of cell signal disruption. The collection of spy-worthy gear and tactical fighting equipment was enough for a small army.

Brad laughed to himself as he thought about how fitting that analogy was. Rashad may have declared his own war first, but Brad knew the Steele team would be the small army that finished it.

“What’d you find, Brad?” Noah asked as he entered the room with his entourage.

The team assembled around the table with Roman, Alex, and Blake, casually picking up their assigned gadgets and settling in for the briefing of Brad’s discovery.

Brad opened his mouth to speak and immediately stopped himself when Silas stepped into his line of sight. His eyes narrowed and his brows furrowed upon taking in his appearance. “Reap, did you pick up a hitchhiking, homeless pimp on your way back?”

“Very funny, Bradford. My little brother wouldn’t stop by the hotel to let me change first, so I get to be Charlie for a while longer.”

“It’s for your own protection. You never know when we’ll run into one of Rashad’s men, or if they’ll see you first out somewhere. You have to stay in constant disguise,” Noah retorted.

“Yeah, I know that. I have been a spy for a long time, you know. But I don’t have to be
Charlie
all the time.”

“Stop whining. It’s not attractive when badass drug dealers whine,” Noah chuckled. “Can we get back to the reason why we’re here?”

“You’re all here to see me,” Shadow announced as he entered the room. “No small bills, please.”

Heather walked to Rebel and took the seat next to him. Several of the men exchanged uncertain glances, knowing every bit of information they worked with was classified. With a determined expression, Heather reached over and laced her fingers with Rebel’s in a silent declaration of her intentions.

Brad looked to Noah for direction, unsure of how to proceed in mixed company. Noah’s lips quirked upward slightly on one side. “Go ahead, Brad. Heather is well aware if she hears something above top secret, we’ll have to kill her.”

“There are worse things than death, Reap. We could put her on Liz duty,” Shadow suggested. “By the time Liz is finished with her, Heather’s mind will be so jumbled, she won’t know her colors from the alphabet.”

“You boys think you’re so funny. The truth is you’re all afraid of me, and you know better than to try to kick me out of here.” Heather rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, but the smile on her face belied her tone.

“I knew Liz reminded me of someone,” Shadow flashed his full-on smile.

“Go ahead, Brad,” Noah instructed when he quit laughing. “Before a fight breaks out in here.”

“I’m still working to piece some of it together, but it’s important enough you need to hear it now. I’m actually counting on your collective experience to help connect the dots. First piece is analysis of the chatter we’ve intercepted. Rebel, your assistance has been requested to help decipher some of these files. The messages have increased—drastically and suddenly—but they’re unintelligible gibberish.”

“I’ll take them,” Rebel replied.

“Next up, I searched for orders of anything that could be used to make bombs since that’s our boy’s specialty. Then I searched for any unusual items that wouldn’t normally be delivered to a civilian or to a residential area. Cross-referencing the two files, I’ve narrowed the search area down to a few specific locations.

“A couple of them are less likely to be his hideout because of the locations and way too much public access. I wouldn’t put anything past him, but I’m just not getting the feels from those areas. The one you should check out first is a gated subdivision in a high-end neighborhood. Very pricey, more than the average home, and the houses have ample room between them. This particular house has more yard than most, so it would make sense for his privacy,” Brad explained.

“Was he stupid enough to have large shipments sent at once? That doesn’t sound like our guy,” Bull replied.

“No, these have been spaced out over a period of time. There were some shipments a few weeks ago, then they stopped, and now they’ve started up again. They’re being shipped to that address every few days. With the access we have to government surveillance and intelligence systems, I was able to match these up in a matter of seconds. He’s definitely not as tech-savvy as his brother was. Turan would’ve bought all this on the deep web,” Brad explained. “The other addresses haven’t had consistent shipments and haven’t all been the same items.”

“Could still be members of his cell. He could be sending parts to different people, thinking it wouldn’t trip any sensors,” Noah replied.

“We’ll check the other addresses just to be sure. He could’ve been moving around, too,” Shadow added.

“Reap, another letter has been delivered to the hospital. The guy watching over your dad is bringing it up. His shift just ended,” Blake informed them.

Blake met him at the door and delivered the letter straight to Reaper. He was silent as he read it, but the vein popping out on his neck gave away his intense anger.

“What the hell?” Reaper demanded

“What does the little pussy have to say this time?” Bull asked.

“Our boy is quite the poet. Now he’s after Brianna. Listen to this shit.

“
M
an
, I wish he’d bring it on already. He must think his stupid little letters are getting to us, scaring us. He’s really just annoying me,” Bull replied.

“The problem with terrorist cells is they could go days without being seen when they’re under orders to stay invisible. Stocked with enough provisions to last weeks, they could very well be inside one of the houses with the shades drawn tight and not be seen,” Shadow replied.

For the following week, the men of Steele Security worked the leads they’d been given. Checking each house took time and around-the-clock monitoring. To avoid stretching their resources too thin, they each took shifts watching one house for a full forty-eight hours before moving on to the next one. They planned to keep this schedule up until someone made a move.

A call from headquarters brought all the men back to the house behind Rebel’s home. Each man hoped for some kind of action that didn’t involve sitting in a car, staring at an apparently empty house. The delivery of the cryptic poem had been the only physical evidence the cell was still around, and all the men were anxious to put an end to the case as soon as possible.

“Reap,” Roman addressed him as soon as the men started filing into the surveillance room. “We have visitors.”

All eyes swung to the monitors broadcasting the images from the surveillance cameras. Six figures moved through the darkness, exaggerated in their attempt to be stealthy in their crouched positions. Brad accessed the cameras remotely and activated the infrared night-vision setting. With their faces clearly shown, Brad captured the images and began running the facial recognition software.

“They’re looking for Heather,” Rebel announced as he entered the room with her in tow. “Let’s help them out.”

“Forcing their hand?” Silas asked.

“Something like that. I don’t like feeling as if they’re in control. We can let them think they are while we track them. If they’re busy watching her, that car is unmanned, and we can get a tracking device on it,” Rebel explained.

“Good plan. These guys are on the same step on the terrorist ladder I was when I was undercover with them. They’re not his most skilled players,” Silas added.

“Let’s go catch some bad guys, babe.” Rebel smiled at Heather. “By the way, there’d better not be cameras or bugs inside our house, Brad.”

“I don’t have a death wish, Rebel,” Brad replied with a straight face.

“It wouldn’t be me who got to you first, Brad.” Rebel replied with a smirk and tugged on Heather’s hand.

Following his lead, she rose and they scurried out the back door and across the lawns toward their own back door. Once inside, they strategically opened specific window coverings to limit the view of the inner details of their home. With the TV on and a shared bowl of popcorn, they snuggled closely together on the couch and waited for the terrorist recon team to work their way down the street to find them.

“When these idiots move on, you’re all mine,” Rebel whispered in Heather’s ear. “We’ve been apart for far too long while I’ve been on this case. It’s almost over, and I’ll be so glad when it is.”

“What do you have in mind?” she purred.

“I have every inch of your body in mind. I’m thinking about your intoxicating scent when you can’t wait another second for me. I can’t wait to hear the sounds you make when I put my mouth on you or my hands or my tongue. I want to feel your body underneath mine or on top of mine or both.”

His mouth was close to her ear, his breath fanned out across her cheek, heating her to the core. With his arm around her and their bodies close together, it took all of her resolve to stay in place and wait them out.

“Can you hurry up and get rid of these guys?” Heather asked on a heavy breath.

“The guys walking around the neighborhood tonight? They’ll be gone soon enough, and I’ll have the rest of the night to remind you why you miss me so much when we’re apart.”

“Braxton Reed, you know exactly what you’re doing to me.”

“I’m just talking to you right now,” he replied before placing a chaste kiss on her neck. “But soon, I’ll do much more than just talk. I’ll touch you. Kiss you. Lick you. Taste you. I’m a starving man, and you’re the only one who can satisfy this hunger.”

“Brax,” she sighed.

“When I first take you upstairs, I’m going to fuck you without apology. Hard. Fast. Raw. Rough. Just when you think you can’t take it a second longer, you’ll beg me for more. Every time you think you can’t come one more time, I’ll prove you wrong. By the time I’m finished with the first round, you’ll be as spent as a rag doll.”

“Oh, my God.” Her hooded eyes and her heaving chest left no doubt how much he affected her.

“Then I’ll make love to you. I’ll worship your body the way it’s meant to be. Slow and steady, I’ll prove beyond a shadow of a doubt your body was made to respond only to me. Every time I push inside you, I’ll go deeper and your body will clench around me. Holding on to me, begging me to make you come again, until I take mercy on you and let you scream my name one last time before you pass out from exhaustion.”

“Give me your gun. I’m going to shoot these guys and get it over with.”

He chuckled and shook his head, knowing she was just as likely to shoot them as not. “As much as I’d like to do that myself, we have to let them lead us back to the rest of their cell.”

“Brad has leads on where Rashad may be. Let the others go to those houses and find him.”

“And if he’s not at any of them? And if there are more members of his cell that can finish whatever he has planned?”

“I hate when you’re right.”

“It only happens once in a while in an argument with you. Let me have this one.”

“Fine. I’ll let you have it.” The challenging gleam in her eye was a complete turn-on for Rebel. She lowered her voice to a seductive whisper and placed her lips against his ear. “I’ll let you take me upstairs. Before you fuck me hard and rough, like you know I love it, I’ll take you in my mouth and work you over until your knees buckle underneath you. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be gritting your teeth to hold on to any shred of self-control you can manage to muster.”

“Fucking hell,” Rebel muttered. “Look what you’ve done.” He drew her hand to his crotch and placed it on his hardened cock.

“If you could see what you’ve done to me, we’d give those guys a real show when they peek through our window,” she replied as she stroked him through his jeans.

He captured her mouth with his and held her face with his hands. He forced his tongue inside, taking total ownership of her without waiting for permission. When her muscles relaxed and her innate guard fell, he felt her melt into his embrace. Just when he started to lift her to straddle his lap, his cell phone began to ring.