Chapter One
The smell of wood polish and lemons mixed with the smooth male scent of the way too respectable man sitting across the round table from Brigid. Everything about Raider Tanaka was clean-cut, upstanding, and unyielding. Even his perfectly tailored navy-blue suit with striped green power tie made him appear like a guy who daily helped old ladies cross the street. “You look like a Fed,” she whispered.
His black eyes glimmered. “I am a Fed,” he whispered back, his voice low and cultured.
Yeah, and that was a problem. She looked around the darkened Boston tavern, where the attire of the patrons ranged from guys wearing worn dock clothes at the long counter to handmade silk suits over in the corner. Bodyguards with bulges beneath their jackets stood point near the guys with nice suits.
She shivered and smoothed down her black T-shirt featuring Dr. Who. The new one. “I don’t think we blend in.”
“I believe that’s the point, Irish,” Raider said, using the nickname he’d given her the first day they’d met. He finished off his club sandwich. His angular features showed his part-Japanese heritage, giving him an edgy look that contrasted intriguingly with his stockbroker suit. Just who was this man?
She shook her head. “I don’t get it. Angus sent us here just to have lunch?” The plane ride alone from DC would’ve cost a mint, even though they’d sat in coach. Of course.
“The boss always has a plan,” Raider said, tipping back his iced tea while eyeing the suits in the corner.
Aye, but it would be nice to know the plan. Brigid enjoyed temporarily working for the ragtag Homeland Defense unit run by Angus Force, but her job was hacking computer systems or writing code. Certainly not having a weird lunch with her handler in Boston. “Shouldn’t we be doing something?”
Raider shrugged and gestured toward her Cobb salad. “You going to finish that?”
“No.” Her stomach was all wobbly.
“Okay.” He slid his empty plate to the side and tugged hers toward him, digging in.
Her mouth gaped open. Straitlaced Raider Tanaka did not seem like the kind of guy to share somebody else’s food. Not a chance. She’d figured him for some dorky germophobe, albeit a good-looking one.
“What?” His dark eyebrows lifted. When she didn’t answer, he glanced down at the lettuce. “When you grow up on the streets or in foster care, you take food where you can get it.” Then he munched contentedly on a crouton.
She blinked, her mind spinning. “You grew up in foster care?” She’d have bet her last dollar, if she had one, that he’d grown up in Beverly Hills somewhere with a maid or two cleaning up his room and making his bed. His suits had to cost a fortune, and he had that prep-school look.
“Yes.” Raider leaned back in his chair. “You’re not the only one who’s tough to figure out.”
Well, that explained why he was such a control freak. Growing up in the system probably did that to a guy. She tried to keep eye contact but found it difficult. Her abdomen warmed, and an interesting tingling licked along her skin. She had to do something about this disastrous attraction she had for him.
His gaze narrowed, while his back somehow straightened even more. That quickly, he went from lazily amused to alert and tense.
Her breathing quickened in response.
A man appeared by their table. One of the guys with the bulging jackets. “Can I help you?”
Raider looked up, a polite smile curving his lips. “Not unless you’re serving dessert.”
Brigid breathed in through her nose and exhaled slowly. Adrenaline flooded her system. This was bad. Was she even supposed to be involved in a side job to her already side job? “We’re fine,” she said.
The guy didn’t look at her. His hair was slicked back, revealing beady brown eyes and a nose that had been flattened permanently to the left. A scar cut through the side of his bottom lip. “You look like a Fed.”
Raider smiled, flashing even white teeth. “So I’ve heard.”
“It’s time for you to leave,” the guy said, resting his hand on his belt.
“No,” Raider said, his voice almost cheerful.
Brigid began to rise, feeling exposed and way too far out in the open. “Raider, I think—”
“Sit down.” Raider kept his gaze on the man with the gun, but the barked command in his voice had her butt hitting the seat in instant response.
She blinked. What the heck had just happened? “Um.”
The armed man leaned in toward Raider. “I tear apart Feds for fun. Now get the pretty redhead out of here before I decide to rip off your face and show her what a real man can do with an hour or two.”
Brigid’s hands curled over the table, and she looked around frantically. The door was so close. She focused back on Raider.
If anything, he looked a little bored. “My money would be on the redhead,” he said, losing his smile. “Now, friend. You can either go get us a dessert menu, or you can fuck off and slink back to your bodyguard duties.”
Brigid swallowed a gasp. Had Raider just said the F-word? She glanced toward the corner, where one of the other bodyguards had started strutting their way. This was about to get bad. She wasn’t armed. Was Raider? He couldn’t be. They’d flown commercially, and he hadn’t declared a gun.
They had to get out of there. Right now.
The guy grabbed Raider by the tie, and then everything happened so quickly that Brigid froze in place.
Raider stood in one easy motion, manacled the back of the guy’s neck, and smashed his head down so hard into the table that the wood cracked in two. Dishes and utensils flew in every direction while the guy and the table crashed to the floor.
Brigid’s chair rocked back, and she yelped, scrambling to her feet to keep from falling. The guy on the floor didn’t move.
Raider’s easy and brutal violence shocked her more than the fight itself.
“Hey!” The other bodyguard, a redheaded man with a barrel of a chest, ran forward while yanking out his gun.
Raider pivoted and kicked the guy beneath the chin, following his downward spiral in a blur of motion. Three punches and a quick twist, and Raider stood with the gun pointed at the back table. When he lifted his chin, the two men there raised their hands.
The remaining patrons looked on, not moving.
Raider straightened his tie and tossed a business card on the table. “Have your boss call me if he wants to get serious.”
Brigid could only gape, her mind fuzzing. What had just happened?
Raider backed toward her. “Door. Now.”
She stumbled for it just as sirens echoed down the street. Running outside into a light rain, she rushed to the passenger side of the compact they’d rented at the airport. Raider calmly entered the driver’s seat, started the engine, and drove away from the restaurant.
Brigid gulped down panic, struggling to secure her seat belt. “I don’t understand. Why in the hell were we sent to that restaurant?”
Raider set the confiscated gun between them and maneuvered around traffic. “I have a feeling our mission went according to plan.” His hands were light on the steering wheel, but his voice held a tone she couldn’t identify. She scrutinized him. He looked as if he’d been out for a relaxing lunch with a friend and hadn’t probably just put two guys—two tough guys—in the hospital for a week.
Just who was Raider Tanaka?
After a silent plane ride back to DC, where Raider read a series of HDD reports and refused to answer any of Brigid’s questions, especially about the darn business card, they finally ended up at their headquarters just as night began to fall. As usual, the dilapidated elevator hitched at the bottom floor and then remained quiet.
“I hate this thing.” Raider smacked his palm against the door. “Open, darn it.”
The door shuddered open.
Amusement bubbled through the unease in Brigid. “You’re magic.”
He looked over his shoulder. “You have no idea, Irish.” Then he crossed into the small, dimly lit vestibule of the basement offices.
Had he just flirted with her? For Pete’s sake. She moved out of the claustrophobic space on wobbly legs. This day was overwhelming on way too many levels. Enough of that silliness. Reaching the wide-open room, she sighed. A coat of fresh paint had brightened the office a bit, but the myriad of desks were still old and scarred, and the overhead lights old, yellow, and buzzing. They’d arranged four desks in a pod belonging to Raider and his colleagues, Malcolm West and Clarence Wolfe. The fourth was empty so far.
Raider looked down at the cracked concrete floor and shook his head.
“We’re supposed to paint that next,” Brigid said, coming up on his side. Wasn’t that the plan? Though she probably wouldn’t be left in place that long. She shivered and tried to stay in the moment. “I think there’s art coming, or screens that show outside scenes.” The basement headquarters were a step down from depressing, even with the fresh paint. This evening, the big room was eerily silent.
Three doors in the far wall led to an office and two conference rooms, while one more door, a closet for the shrink, was situated to the west.
A German shepherd padded out of the far office, munching contentedly on something bright red. It coated his mouth and stained the light fur around his chin.
“Roscoe,” Brigid breathed, her entire body finally relaxing. Animals and computer code, she knew. It was people who threw her.
The dog seemed to grin and bounded toward her, his tail wagging wildly. She ducked to pet him. “What in the world do you have?” Close up, she could see that the stuff was thick and matted in his fur. She frowned and tried to force open his mouth. “Roscoe?”
As if on cue, Angus Force stepped out of the second conference room, also known as case room two. “Hey, you two. How was Boston?”
Brigid looked up. “Roscoe has something.”
“Damn it.” Angus made it through the desks in record time. “Is it Jack Daniel’s?”
Brigid craned her neck to see. “No. It’s red.” The dog had a well-known drinking problem.
Angus glared at his dog. “Drop it. Now.” The command in his voice held absolutely no patience.
The dog sighed and spit out a gold-plated lipstick.
Brigid winced. “That looks expensive.”
The dog licked his lips.
Angus sighed. “I told everyone not to leave makeup around. He likes the taste.”
“No, you didn’t,” Brigid countered.
Angus pierced her with a look. “Well, I meant to. Roscoe, get back to the office. Now.”
The dog gave her a “what a butthead” type of look and turned to slink back to Angus’s office.
“You two, come with me.” Angus turned and headed back to the case room, no doubt expecting them to follow.
Raider motioned her ahead of him. Yeah. Like she’d return to that death trap of an elevator. Though it was preferable to dealing with Angus Force. The former FBI profiler now headed up this ragtag division of the HDD, and he seemed almost able to read people’s minds. Was he reading hers? Did he have one clue that she wasn’t who she was supposed to be? How much had he guessed? More importantly, why had he sent her to Boston?
She crossed into the case room to face a whiteboard across from a conference table. Several pictures of men, aged twenty to seventy, were taped evenly across the expanse. “New case?” she asked.
“Yes.” Angus gestured for them to sit. “Did anybody recognize you in Boston?”
It took her a second to realize he was talking to her and not to Raider. “Me?”
“Yes,” Angus said.
What the heck? “Why would anybody have recognized me?” she asked, her senses thrumming. Was she being set up? Again?
Raider eyed her and then Angus. “Nobody recognized her. My best suit, which you asked me to wear, did get some attention, however. And I left that business card as ordered. I take it somebody will be calling soon?”
Angus nodded. “I’ve already read the Boston police report, and yes, somebody will be calling your new ID, which we’re still creating.”
Curiosity took Brigid as she sat down with Raider beside her.
Angus moved to the board. “New case I requested from the HDD. They think it’s crap, and I think it has merit. Either that, or somebody is messing with us.”
Raider stiffened just enough that Brigid could feel his tension. “How so?”
“While the Irish mob no longer exists in Boston, there are criminals, past associates of the mob, that have risen in the ranks and become threats recently,” Angus said, standing big and broad on the other side of the table.
Brigid perched in her seat, still not seeing the connection. She had no problem hacking into criminal affairs, so perhaps that’s why she was included on this op?
“How so?” Raider asked, all business.
“Instead of working within the usual, or rather former, hierarchy of the mob, these guys are outsourcing work to incredibly skilled computer criminals for everything from laundering money to shipping schedules,” Angus said.
“Like me,” Brigid said quietly. Oh, the fine line between hacking for the government and for criminals. In fact, was there even a line? She couldn’t see it anymore. Bad guys were everywhere.
Angus nodded. “Exactly. We have a lead on a group using a site on the dark web. They’re running drugs, and I’m telling you, I think there’s more.” He scrubbed a hand across his eyes. “In fact, I think I’ve found what.”
The dark web was nearly impossible to hack. “I can’t just find a site without knowing where it is,” Brigid said. “The key to bringing down somebody on the dark web is—”
“Getting them to meet you in person,” Raider said. “Guess that’s my part of this op.”
“Partially,” Angus said, eyeing them both. “There’s something else.”
Warning ticked through Brigid. Why, she didn’t know. But her instincts rose instantly, and she stiffened. “What?”
“We think this might be one of the key players.” Angus turned and taped one more picture to the board.
Brigid stopped breathing. She stared at the picture. He had aged. His skin was leathery, his nose broken more than once, and his hair now all gray.
Raider glanced at her. “Who is that?”
“My father,” she whispered. The man she only spoke to out of duty these days. She coughed. “You’re crazy. He’s a farmer. Always has been.”
Angus winced. “No. He was involved with the Irish mob, more specifically the Coonan family, for years. Formative ones. Then he supposedly got out, but now we think he’s back in, and he’s part of what’s happening now.”
That couldn’t be true. No way. “That’s why you sent us to Boston? Those guys in the corner were mobsters?” Brigid gasped.
“Yep. Just wanted to see if you’d be recognized, and I also needed Raider to leave his new calling card,” Angus said.
“Damn it,” Raider muttered. “You could’ve given me a heads-up.”
Brigid tried to rein in her temper. “Of course nobody recognized me. You’re wrong about my father.”
“Prove it,” Angus said mildly. “You and Raider go talk to him and prove I’m wrong. But be prepared to be incorrect about this.”
Brigid shook her head. “You want me to take an obvious government agent to my father’s farm and what? Just ask him if he’s involved in cybercrime?” No way. “Believe me. My dad wouldn’t talk to a Fed if he was dying.”
Angus’s smile didn’t provide reassurance. “No. You’re going home to reconcile with your father because you’ve finally found your way in life with the man next to you—one with possible criminal ties that we’re still working out. The man you want to introduce to your father before you marry.”
“Marry?” Brigid blurted, her mind spinning wildly. “Are you nuts?” She turned to the straitlaced hottie next to her. “Tell him this won’t work.”
Raider hadn’t moved. “This is important, Force?”
“Crucial,” Angus affirmed. “There’s more going on here than drugs. I just know it.”
Raider turned and studied her with those deep, dark eyes. “Well, Irish. Looks like we’re engaged.” His smile sent butterflies winging through her abdomen. “This is going to be interesting. Now that you’re mine, I will finally figure you out.”
Anticipation rushed through Raider’s veins, yet he sat still in his seat, schooling his expression into mild interest.
Force smiled at Brigid. “I need you to reach out to Wolfe’s new friend Dana. The journalist? Supposedly she’s been working on a story about the Irish mob and credit card fraud.”
Supposedly? There was no such thing with Angus Force. “How did you tip her off?” Raider lifted his head.
Force shrugged. “It wasn’t hard. She’s a good investigator, and I planted a few crumbs. She picked them up easily, which is good, because we need her sources.”
“We’ve only been back a week. Now Dana is Wolfe’s friend?” They’d met the woman the week before in Kentucky on another assignment, and he hadn’t thought the two had hit it off. Clarence Wolfe was the muscle for the unit, and dollars to donuts, he was insane. Or else he had a really weird sense of humor. Raider hadn’t pinned him down yet. “He’s not going to like you messing with her life.”
Force tugged his T-shirt free of his neck. “He’s a good soldier and he’ll understand the mission. Well, probably. Brigid? After you call Dana, I need one more thing from you today. There was a new possible sighting of Henry Wayne Lassiter in Malibu the other day. Would you mind dodging into your computer room and running it down?”
“Sure.” Brigid stood, her gaze flicking to Raider and back. The woman’s green eyes had captivated him from the first second, followed closely by that slight Irish brogue with a hint of Boston in it. The brogue was strong, but the eyes vulnerable. She tried to hide it, but he was a master at figuring people out. What scared her? She was all wrong for him, but the flashes of fear she let slip drew him. If she needed protection, he could provide that. It was his job, after all.
She bit her lip before continuing. “You know we haven’t found any proof that Lassiter is alive, right?” Her voice was tentative and her glance sympathetic as she focused back on Force.
“I’m aware,” Force said dryly. “And if one more of you gives me a copy of Moby-Dick, I’m going to fire you all.”
Well, the guy was searching for a whale that didn’t exist. Lassiter was a serial killer Force had shot and supposedly killed five years ago who maybe, just maybe, was actually alive. Raider thought Force was tilting at windmills, but so long as the guy didn’t get in the way of Raider’s op, he didn’t much care.
Brigid moved silently from the room, and the air somehow grew heavy. Roscoe lifted his head from his bed in the corner, sniffed, and jumped to his feet, following the woman, his tail wagging.
Force stood by the board, his muscled arms crossed, his green eyes shrewd.
Raider studied him. “Why now, Force?” The guy had impeccable timing. “There’s a ticking clock on all that you do.”
Force nodded. “Yeah. The HDD tracked some of Coonan’s money to Thailand, where there are several missing girls.”
Ah, crap. “You think they’re trafficking kids?” Raider grunted.
“Maybe. Gut feeling? Yes. And those kids are somehow being moved right now.” Fury darkened Angus’s gaze.
Raider swallowed. “Then put Brigid on it. Why didn’t you tell her?”
Angus shook his head. “Tell her that her father might be part of a human trafficking ring? Right. For now, you don’t tell her this part of the operation.”
Fair enough. She didn’t need to know that. “Fine.”
Angus’s chin lowered. “What about you? Are you okay with this assignment?”
Raider lifted a shoulder. “Of course.”
A muscle ticked right beneath Force’s jaw. His gaze narrowed, and his hands were steady. Too steady. Had he been dipping into the bottle again?
Raider waited. He’d learned patience at a young age, too young of an age, and he could sit still all day.
Force’s upper lip curved. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
Well, that was ambiguous. Raider kept silent and didn’t avert his gaze.
Force smiled then, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Oh, he was probably good-looking to most women, and most men, but Raider knew a predator on the edge when he saw one. And the former FBI profiler definitely rode a razor these days. “Raider?” Force asked softly. Way too softly. “I can send Wolfe in with her and fire your ass.”
As a threat, it was spot on. Force hadn’t been the best for nothing.
Raider shifted gears and strategies in a nanosecond. “How long have you known?”
Force snorted. “I’m a profiler. Jesus. I knew from day one you shouldn’t be in the HDD’s secret and embarrassing unit.” He gestured around the room, encompassing the old yellowed tiles on the floor and dented panel walls. “Is the story even true?”
Raider thought about forcing a blanch but figured Force would see through it. So he went with the truth instead. “That I slept with a superior’s wife and got my balls busted? Yeah. That’s true.” Of course, he hadn’t known the woman he’d picked up in a bar that night was married to his boss’s boss. But still. He’d never been a guy to pick up a one-night stand, and he deserved a slap-down for doing that, because a government agent, one at his level, had too much to lose. But he’d just lost his partner, and he’d been out drinking, and things had gone from bad to worse. The sex hadn’t even been that good. “But it was just an excuse to get transferred.”
“So you have friends high enough to get you exactly what you want,” Force said, no judgment in his tone.
“Not friends,” Raider returned. He could count his friends on one hand, and most of those had grown up with him in foster care. This team, well now. He was starting to count them, too, and he didn’t need that distraction. Keeping his distance should be second nature to him, especially since he was a much colder bastard now than he’d ever been—and he hadn’t exactly started out warm and fuzzy. “People who want the Coonan family taken down as badly as I do. We saw the opportunity with Brigid and your Deep Ops unit, and we took it. I took it.” This was on him. Nobody else.
Force yanked out a chair and dropped into it. “I read the report. You were a good handler, and it wasn’t your fault Treeson died.”
Mel Treeson had been a thirty-year-old smartass with a heart of gold, and nobody deserved to die the way he had at the hands of the Coonans. “I was his handler,” Raider repeated. Mel’s death was on him. Life was simple and true. Shitty but simple.
Force sighed. “How long had you worked together?”
“Off and on for about three years and then two years solid on this op, which centered on the Coonans’ drug trade before the patriarch died.” Mel had gone undercover in Boston as an enforcer in the Coonan family organization, and to this day, Raider didn’t know how he’d been found out. “I’ve waited a year to figure out another way in.” He knew all the players, and even though Brigid’s father had supposedly been out for decades, he’d kept feelers out. It had been fortuitous that he’d found out about Brigid—Wait a minute. Raider straightened his already ramrod posture. “You fucker.”
Force’s face split in a smile. “That’s the first time I’ve heard your real voice.”
Ah, shit. His Southern drawl, the one he’d worked so hard to banish, had rolled out with his anger. Raider cleared his throat, sharpening his diction and regaining his necessary and always present control. “You engineered this.” He’d forgotten. In his ego, in this rush to get back to the case and take down the people who’d killed his friend, he’d forgotten what a master manipulator Angus Force really was.
Force shrugged. “Meh.”
Fury spiraled up Raider’s spine, and he breathed deep, holding on to his temper with sheer will. “Meh?”
Force’s green eyes glittered. “You’ve been playing at being an easygoing Fed for over two months in my unit, and you think you have a right to be pissed?”
“Yes,” Raider said evenly.
Force snorted. “Fair enough. When I discovered the case, my research led me to Brigid, who was serving time for hacking. I may have requested her release, and I might’ve ensured you were made aware of her possible transfer to this unit.” He flattened large hands on the dented conference table. “The bait was there—but you jumped at it faster than a trout spotting a worm.”
Raider aligned the new information with his plans, which didn’t change one iota, really. It was good the gloves were off with Force, because now he could drop the pretense. “You already knew about the Coonan family. This case didn’t just arrive on your desk.” Sometimes he wanted to shoot Force between the eyes.
“Yep.” Force slid a manila file toward him. “I have several cases I’m looking into, and this is one of them, and you were a necessary piece on the chessboard. So tomorrow, you be here with your files, since I’m sure you kept copies. We’ll add those to the records I’ve compiled, and we’ll come up with a plan.”
Yeah, Raider had records. “Do our handlers know about this?” The unit, unfortunately, had a couple of HDD handlers who wanted nothing more than for them to fail.
Angus scratched his chin. “Agents Rutherford and Fields may or may not know. I’m not sending them reports, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t keeping track.”
Oh, those two were definitely keeping track. One problem at a time, though. Raider cleared his throat. “I don’t need Brigid to go undercover with me. She’s untrained, Force.” Plus, he liked the redhead. She was sweet, and even though she’d followed the wrong path and gotten in trouble, he fully planned to help her find a good second chance. The woman deserved it.
Force shook his head. “Don’t tell me you’re falling for her.”
Raider snorted before he could stop himself. “For a wild hacker who keeps getting in trouble with the law? Um, no.”
Force’s gaze narrowed, and his upper lip tipped. “Not your type?”
“Not even close.” Sure, she was pretty and had that fragile underside, but his type was a nice girl with a calm life and no criminal record. One who’d fit in with his life and ambitions at the agency. Someday. Not now. “Regardless, I don’t require Brigid on this case.”
Force shook his head. “Yes, you do. There’s a time crunch, and you need to get through to her father. She’s an asset. But to work with her, you need to understand her. Here’s when Brigid first found herself on the wrong side of the law.” He pushed the manila file folder even closer.
Raider ignored the folder and fought against the curiosity grabbing him. “I already know she was caught hacking into a secure governmental server, sentenced, and yanked from prison by you to work for the unit. Free pass.”
Force rolled his eyes. “She’s too smart to get caught. Look beyond the pretty face that irritates you so much.”
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