Hard As You Can

Chapter 3

I’d like to propose a toast to Becca, for bringing us all together. And for this amazing meal,” Shane McCallan said, raising his glass and hoping it would help make amends with her.

Becca smiled and ducked her chin as Nick pulled her in snug against his side. All around the makeshift plywood-and-sawhorse table, glasses went up along with appreciative comments about the incredible dinner Becca had spent the day preparing. A mountainous platter of fried chicken, huge crock of homemade meatballs, overflowing bowls of mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables, and a plate of fresh corn bread stacked a mile high filled the table, not to mention an apple pie and a chocolate cake. It was all the favorites everyone had asked for to celebrate Charlie’s rescue.

And what they’d accomplished was worth a celebration because they’d been ass deep in alligators. Dumb luck had played far too great a role in everyone making it home safe and mostly sound. They only had a few scars to show for it, thanks to Becca’s skilled nursing.

“You’re more than welcome,” Becca said, raising her own glass. “But I have to make a toast of my own. To each of you—” She swept her gaze around the table, from Nick beside her, to Shane at the end, to Jeremy and Easy across from her, and to Beckett and Marz on her other side. “This dinner does not begin to be enough to thank you for everything you’ve done for me and Charlie, nor are my words. But know I’ll do everything I can to help you right the wrong that was done to you. And that you all have a place in my heart. So, to each of you.”

The toasts were more subdued this time, but the expression on every man’s face made clear the respect he felt for Becca.

“Now, let’s eat!” she said with a big smile.

“I hope there’s enough,” Jeremy said, setting off a raucous round of laughter.

“You think he’s kidding,” Nick said. “Boy might be skinny, but he can pack away some chow.”

As everyone filled their plates, Shane glanced around the table and took a long pull from his beer. The group of old friends—and a few new—ate and laughed and joked and shared stories. Hard to believe they’d only been reunited for a few days.

The food and the conversation were great, but the restless energy that had buzzed through Shane during his run, at the grocery store, and as they worked with Jer’s friend to install the barbed-wire fencing still flowed through Shane’s veins so fast and so thick he could barely sit still. Over this goat fuck of an operation. Over the cover-up that had changed everything for him. Over the woman he’d met last night and what might’ve happened to her after they bugged out of there.

Crystal.

“You okay, Shane?” Becca asked.

He smiled. “Happy as a pig in a poke. Food’s delicious.”

Becca laughed.

“Try to restrain your inner redneck, there, McCallan,” Easy said with the hint of a grin. You might’ve thought a big black guy from inner-city Philly and a good old boy from the South wouldn’t get along, but Shane and Easy had been fast friends from the beginning. In fact, Shane was responsible for crafting the guy’s nickname out of the initials of his full name, Edward Cantrell. And Easy, well, Easy was responsible for almost single-handedly holding off the tangos who’d ambushed their convoy, giving Shane, trained as their team’s backup medic, time to patch up the damage a grenade had inflicted on both Derek and Beckett.

Shane held out his hands. “Gotta be who I am.”

Easy chuckled. “Well, be who you are without hogging the mashed potatoes. Pass ’em on down here.”

Before long, everyone was clearing away their paper dinner plates in favor of clean plates for dessert. By the way they all attacked the cake, pie, and vanilla ice cream, you’d have never known they’d just demolished a veritable feast.

After inhaling his first piece of chocolate cake, Jeremy scooped another wedge onto his plate. “What?” he said as he dug in.

“Nothing.” Becca smiled, affection for the younger Rixey plain on her face. “Eat up.”

Nick stabbed his fork into Jeremy’s cake and scooped a huge chunk for himself.

“Hey!” Jeremy yelled, scowling and tucking the plate against his chest and that ridiculously awesome beaver T-shirt.

Nick grinned and winked at Becca. Man, the guy had pulled a total one-eighty in the days since they’d been reunited. From sullen to almost playful. Well, as playful as war-hardened soldiers who had been cheated out of their careers by betrayal and corruption could be. Sonofabitch. But, one thing was for sure, Nick Rixey wore a new lightness like a second skin.

No matter how tense things were between him and Nick, no matter how pissed he was at Nick’s silent treatment for the past year, Shane couldn’t begrudge the guy a slice of happiness. Not after everything they’d been through together.

Watching Nick and Becca smile and touch and just find solace in one another’s presence set off an old ache in Shane’s chest. Because he would never have that with someone.

God knew he didn’t deserve it.

There were some things you could never atone for.

Molly’s eight-year-old face came to mind. With her freckles, dimples, and pigtails, his sister had defined cuteness. She’d looked up to him like the sun rose and set at his feet.

And he had failed her so spectacularly that the guilt and grief had been imprinted into his very DNA. God, in the list of moments he’d accumulate in his lifetime that he wished he could take back, telling her to go away and leave him alone would never, ever be surpassed. Because an hour later, she was gone. On his watch. Forever.

So solitude was his penance. Not that it was enough. Not that it would ever be enough.

Jesus H. Christ, this is supposed to be a celebration, McCallan.

A click sounded at the door to the warehouse-turned-gym, now their situation room in an operation they were still trying to make heads or ass out of. Nick’s friend Miguel Olivero entered. “Look who I found wandering the halls,” he said in the jovial tone Shane already associated with the private investigator. Miguel ushered Charlie in through the doorway, Eileen hot on their heels.

Becca flew to her feet. “Charlie, what are you doing up?” She rounded the table and rushed to his side. The guy had been racked out in Nick’s sister’s room in the apartment across the hall since the early hours of the morning. Charlie looked about a thousand times better than when they’d grabbed him from the basement of Church’s strip club, but it was still possible a hard wind could blow him over. Not surprising given he’d been dehydrated, tortured, and maimed at the hands of the Church gang less than twenty-four hours before. A ball of gauze surrounded his right hand, shielding the stumps of the two fingers he’d lost. Shane had to give him props, though, because the guy hadn’t spilled a bean to the gang about the information his computer hacking had apparently revealed.

That someone or something named WCE had made a shitload of deposits totaling $12 million to a Singapore bank account in Frank Merritt’s name.

“Eileen had to go out,” he said, his voice like sandpaper. While Charlie’s dark blond hair was just long enough to be pulled back in a knot at the nape of his neck, his blue eyes, height, and lankiness all resembled his old man.

After learning about the money, Charlie had suspected his father was on the take, so he’d dug into the old man’s affairs, too, which led him to Nick. But his online “research” had apparently been noticed—by who they didn’t yet know—because Charlie had been kidnapped by the Church organization and interrogated about a whole host of things, including how he knew about the account, whether he had the passcode for it, and what else he knew about his father’s activities.

Becca and Miguel led Charlie to the folding chair next to Jeremy, then Miguel took the last empty chair next to Nick. The eight of them made up the “team” responsible for saving Charlie’s life. The newcomers dug into plates of food Becca had set aside for them.

As everyone cleared their plates, Nick excused himself, crossed the room to Marz’s makeshift computer desks in the back corner, and returned with a legal pad. Sitting again, he said, “We need a game plan.”

Murmurs of agreement echoed the sentiment.

“These were the questions we came up with last night. First, who or what is WCE? Second, how was Merritt connected to them and to Church?” He stabbed his pen against the paper as he articulated each of the questions. “What were they looking for when they ransacked Charlie’s and Becca’s houses. Who was Church’s company at the club? And what do the codes we found in Becca’s bracelet go to?” He scanned the group. “What am I forgetting?”

“We also need to find the pin to access the funds in Merritt’s bank account,” Marz said. Charlie nodded weakly as Nick made a notation on the pad.

Beckett sat forward, his shoulders like mountains and his expression like stone. He was one of the most reserved men Shane knew. Absolutely lethal in the field, he never met a piece of equipment he couldn’t use, fix, or make work better. Second to Marz’s prosthesis, Beckett bore the most visible scars from their ambush in the shrapnel marks around his right eye and the limp resulting from the complete reconstruction of his left leg. “It’s a bigger question, but deserves a place on the list. Who made the cover-up in Afghanistan possible? Because that shit didn’t happen on its own.”

“That’s the damn truth,” Nick said as he added the question. “What else?”

Charlie cleared his scratchy throat. “Well, I thought of something else.”

Conversation ground to an immediate halt, and all eyes swung to him. In a number of ways, he’d become the lynchpin to their investigation because he’d met their enemies, been on the inside, and his separate knowledge of Merritt’s black ops got them around the nondisclosure agreement that they’d been forced to sign to avoid a one-way trip to Leavenworth. Anyone tried to accuse them of opening their traps about the truth, Charlie’s own firsthand knowledge would offer a big old CYA.

“What is it?” Becca asked when the tension became a physical presence in the room.

The guy’s gaze flickered around the table, nervousness rattling off him. “I just don’t know if it’s relevant.”

“Everything’s relevant at this point,” Nick said.

Shane sat forward in his seat. “Damn straight.” Everyone had acceded to Becca’s wishes not to push Charlie, given his condition, but the former intel officer in him was chomping at the bit for a methodical debrief.

Looking at his plate, Charlie said, “I wasn’t the only one they were holding.” He let that information hang there for a moment, then continued. “In the first place they held me, there were three women. I didn’t see them, but I could hear them crying, and other stuff.” Pissed-off murmurs erupted around the room, and Shane tugged his hand roughly through his hair. “When they brought me to the club, there were another two in the room they put me in. Looked out of it, like maybe they were drugged. But then I passed out, and . . .” He shook his head.

Ice slid through Shane’s blood. If there had been women in with Charlie, they were gone by the time they’d found him. Where had they been taken? “How old were they?” Shane asked.

“Didn’t see the first women. Just heard them. The other ones were young, though. If they were twenty, I’d be surprised.”

Shane’s fists curled. Molly would’ve been twenty-four this year. It was close enough that the thought of those women—clearly held by Church against their will—conjured up all of the terrifying nightmares that had always plagued him about his sister’s disappearance. He shuddered.

“Anything else?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know why they were holding them, but I don’t think it had anything to do with why they were holding me.” Charlie pushed his plate away, most of the food untouched.

Easy scowled. “Lotsa reasons why an organization like Church’s would be grabbing women. None of ’em good.” Murmured agreements went around the table.

“Sounds like human trafficking,” Shane bit out.

Nick raised a hand. “Why do you think there wasn’t a connection, Charlie?”

“I heard them say that the girls in the room where you found me were for Azziz and to put them in storage for a delivery.”

Put them in storage? What kind of sick fuck? “Which brings us back to my interpretation,” Shane said with barely restrained rage. “Did you hear any more about this meeting or who Azziz is while you were with them?”

Charlie shook his head, but his gaze went distant. “Wait,” he blurted out. “Right after they took my fingers—” His gaze cut to Becca’s. “Sorry.” Sadness filtered into her expression. “Um, after that, the one guy got a call. He confirmed a delivery on Wednesday night. I don’t think he said a name, but I was kinda out of it. But he definitely called it a delivery, then, too.” He shrugged.

Shane’s brain turned this new information round and round and teased through the pieces, trying to figure out how they—

“That shit stinks. But as much as I hate to say it, I think you’re right. Whatever’s going on with those women, it doesn’t sound like our battle,” Nick said, heaving a troubled sigh.

Pulling himself from his thoughts, Shane’s gaze whipped toward his former superior. “What?” Nick’s expression was grim. Blood pounded behind Shane’s ears in a thunderous rush, and he surveyed the group until he was sure his words would be calm, measured. “You think we should just leave them there?”

“I don’t think we should. I think we have to, and I resent the hell out of that fact. But we are outmanned, outgunned, and operating around way the hell too many blank spots—”

“Jesus, Nick. De oppresso liber,” Shane spat the Special Forces motto like an accusation, unable to restrain his inner asshole where this topic was concerned. But they’d devoted their lives to freedom for the oppressed, and he had no intention of giving that up because his uniform had been stripped from him.

A storm rolled in behind Rixey’s gaze. “Damnit, Shane. Don’t think for a minute I don’t burn to free anyone those scum might be holding. But there are only five of us. We don’t have the men or resources to take on the world, no matter how righteous those battles might be.”

Beckett sat forward. “Let’s say it is human trafficking. Who are they trading the women to and for what? Plenty of trafficking in Afghanistan. Maybe they’re using the girls to buy off the warlords or grease the wheels with Afghani customs officials. I don’t know. But it might be worth learning more about whatever this delivery is on Wednesday night. How to get the women to safety, if there even are any, is a problem for another day.”

Shane studied Nick’s expression while Beckett laid out his argument and saw the words hitting home. If Shane had come at Nick with logic instead of emotion, maybe the room wouldn’t be so tense right now.

Nick nodded. “Fair point. We’ll add the who, what, when, where, why of that delivery to the list.”

His teammates all nodded, and damn if the regretful expressions they sent his way weren’t a smack in the ass. The guys knew each other’s weaknesses. They had to. So, they knew about Molly, knew Shane had a mile-wide need to save women in trouble, knew it was Shane’s biggest exposed nerve. Which he’d just proven by attacking Nick when he hadn’t deserved an ounce of the grief. Shit.

Shane gave a tight nod. “Then we have to get back inside Confessions. That waitress could be our key,” he said, looking at Nick and thinking about Crystal. Would she know anything about those girls? Christ, was she a victim of trafficking herself? The thought nearly had the food he’d just eaten burning a hole in his gut. “She didn’t give us away, so maybe she’d be willing to help us.”

“You have to go back in?” Becca asked Nick, her fair skin paling to a shade just this side of death.

Nick opened his mouth to respond, but Shane beat him to the punch. “No, not Nick. Me.”

“Shouldn’t be either of you. Not Easy, either,” Beckett said. “You’ve been in there. You could’ve been made. Me or Marz can go,” he said.

Shane pushed up from the table. “No. You know damn well I know how to disguise myself. For whatever reason, she helped me. Twice. Might mean a whole lotta nothing. But she was skittish as hell. If for some reason she saw something in me she could trust, I need to be the one to talk to her again. ASAP.” And not just because Shane was worried about the woman. But if she knew something about this delivery, and Beckett’s argument was right, she could very well lead them to intel that would help them regain their good names and their stolen honor.

“Let him go,” Marz said, shooting a look at Beckett. “He could be right. It’s worth a try. I’ll wire you up, and you can take in more hardware while you’re at it. The devices we planted aren’t doing shit for us. Maybe she could even plant some in the back?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Shane slid the metal folding chair under the makeshift table, glad he’d found a mission-critical reason to check on the woman who had put her neck on the line for him last night. He didn’t need his gut to tell him she was in trouble. She’d all but admitted it. Crystal’s wide eyes, long red hair, and beautifully delicate features came to his mind’s eye, and Shane couldn’t get to her soon enough. “Thanks again for a great meal, Becca.”

The weight of several gazes lit on his back as he crossed the gym to the door, but he paid the sensation no mind. He was doing what they needed done. So what if it also gave him a shot at learning what might be happening to the women who landed in that godforsaken basement?

He crossed the industrial hallway to a door on the other side of the landing, punched a key code into the box at the side, and entered the Rixeys’ apartment. With its brick walls, high ceilings, and exposed ductwork, the space retained the old warehouse’s character, but Jeremy had done a helluva job renovating to make it an inviting place to hang and shoot the shit. Too bad they weren’t here for that.

At the very back of the large apartment, Shane found the no-frills guest room where he’d crashed the past few days. A row of duffels lined one wall, and he rifled through one until he found what he needed. In the hall bathroom, he spiked out his hair with the gel he only ever used for darkening his hair color and, with the right clothes, subtly altering his appearance. It was a testament to his belief in Nick that he’d brought all his guns, equipment, and supplies with him. But six years of living and fighting and bleeding with someone meant you trusted his gut when it sounded the alarm. Simple as.

A few minutes later, he was in black from head to toe. Boots. Jeans. Tee. Holster. Beat-up leather jacket. He slipped the butterfly necklace he always carried into his pocket, tucking it deep so it couldn’t fall out. Back at the mirror, he threw on some shades to see the effect. Nothing like the clean-cut look he’d sported the previous night. He grabbed a fake ID, his Sig Sauer, an earpiece, and a blade, then made to fly.

Anticipation flashed through his veins. If the gang had roughed Crystal up after they rescued Charlie last night, that damage would rest on his shoulders. At least partly. At this point, he couldn’t not go back and check on her. Just his sense of duty at work. What else would it be?

Nick was waiting for him in the living room, ass propped against the back of the couch and ankles and arms crossed. “I don’t like your going in alone.”

“Won’t be alone. I’ve got the communication equipment from last night’s op. And this is strictly fact-finding. No intent to engage.”

Nick gave a tight nod. “Good. That’s good.” They clasped hands, a familiar understanding passing between them. Shane turned for the door. “And Shane?”

He paused. Too much to hope for a clean getaway.

“Eyes on the prize, brother. Are we clear?”

Shane hated that Nick thought he needed a reminder to keep focused on the mission, but after Shane’s outburst, part of him wasn’t surprised to receive it. He reached the door and tugged it open. “Crystal.”

Shane bit out a curse under his breath. The pun wasn’t lost on him as the door clanked shut.