Zac chuckled, and I grimaced. Zac laughing in this situation wasn’t good.
“Wavy and Baby Bollinger, can I introduce Ian DeRose? He owns Zodiac Tactical. We work with them occasionally. He is also the world’s foremost expert on Mosaic and how to stop them.”
Ian DeRose. Shit. I’d heard the guys talk about him and Zodiac before.
Baby lowered his weapon, laughing. “Sorry, man. I got a panicked call that Wavy here had a possible tango, and that I needed to get my ass over to help, stat.”
“Thanks for checking your info before shooting,” Ian said. He stared at me. Message clear: I hadn’t checked.
Boo-hoo. I hadn’t had a real weapon either.
“This is Landon Black, my right hand,” Ian said. “We got a message from Kendrick that he might have an update. He’s not at his place.”
Zac nodded. “Yeah, I can help you with that. He’s at a safe house.”
“I’m getting back home to my fiancée. I’ll let Finn know to stand down.” Baby reached in to hug me and whispered in my ear, “Way to take down the enemy, sis.”
“Piss off.” But I kissed his cheek.
He laughed as he walked away.
“I’m going to grab a slice of pie.” Zac glanced at Ian’s shirt and pants. “If there’s any left.”
“I’ll take some of that action,” Landon said. “I’ve already heard about the pie here.”
That left me and Ian Dark and Dangerous DeRose out here alone.
“I guess I owe you an apology.” Why was that so hard to say? With anyone else, I would’ve already apologized while laughing at how I’d been such a moron, then make a joke about free pie for life.
But somehow, I was too aware of Ian DeRose to laugh like I did with everyone else. Instead, I had this unnerving need to run away from him.
Or step closer.
“You were trying to detain a member of Mosaic, so that justifies a lot.” He looked at me with brown eyes that were way too intense. Like he never let his guard down.
My fingers itched to run through the dark hair behind his ear. A touch to soothe. To connect.
I had no idea why. He didn’t seem like he would accept that sort of touch from anyone, much less a stranger.
“Still, bad guy or not, I’m sorry I hit you.”
He took a step closer, and I couldn’t help but take a step back. His smile turned the slightest bit predatory as he moved toward me again.
My back was to the wall. Literally and figuratively.
He got closer.
He reached down, and I thought he was going to touch me, but he grabbed the tray in my hand instead.
“Next time, come at your enemy’s temple with the edge of the tray where it’s hardest.” He tapped the edge with his knuckles. “You’re a lot more likely to do damage that way, Wavy Bollinger.”
And then he was gone.
3
Ian
The next day, Landon and I were on our way into Reddington City, the largest city in western Wyoming. Hell, it was pretty much the only city in western Wyoming.
We’d already been there once, me covered in pie, to meet with Kendrick at the safehouse where he was still trying to crack the drive. I wasn’t surprised to find the drive was more difficult to access than anyone had figured.
Mosaic had never made anything easy for anyone.
I’d wanted to take the drive and give it to my people to work on, but the head of my tech team had assured me that if Kendrick and his girlfriend Neo couldn’t crack it, the Zodiac nerds wouldn’t be able to either. “Elite white hat hackers” was the term my team leader had used to describe them, awe clear in her tone. She joked about getting their autographs.
At least I thought she was joking.
So Kendrick and Neo were continuing their computer voodoo. Landon and I were on our way to check out a building they’d suspected was a front for Mosaic activities and had an entire secret underground level.
My tech team had been up all night getting as many details about the Hemingway building as possible. The layers of electronic and personnel security for the facility were way too high for a building that housed a couple of lawyers’ offices, an accounting firm, and a travel agency.
Last I checked, none of those had need for guards with Uzis and electronic key-coding that rivaled military bases. It meant Mosaic was protecting something. I wanted to know what that was.
Landon and I had decided not to wait. We were going in ourselves. He would be posing as a wealthy businessman interested in renting an entire floor of offices while I gained access to the hidden level to see what I could find.
We should be going over the details of the mission to make them as solid as possible, but Landon was more interested in giving me shit about the past eighteen hours we’d spent in Oak Creek.
Specifically, the minutes involving Wavy Bollinger.
“All I’m saying is that you didn’t stop her from hitting you with the tray.”
I raised my gaze heavenward with a long-suffering sigh. “You weren’t there. How do you know she didn’t get the drop on me?”
Landon scoffed. “She’s an untrained civilian who weighs a buck twenty sopping wet, half of that in her smile. I’ve seen you take down guys twice as big as her trained in hand-to-hand combat and subterfuge.”
I kept on driving. “Maybe she got lucky.”
Or maybe I’d known that stopping the tray would have meant hurting her in some way. Or at the very least, knocking the wind from her by throwing her against that wall.
I hadn’t wanted to do that.
But I sure as hell didn’t want to explain it to Landon right now. Especially when I didn’t understand it myself.
It was something about her smile.
I didn’t know why, but on some instinctive level, my body hadn’t wanted to do what it had been trained to do. And in the split second I’d realized it was her, I’d stopped myself.
“Maybe I was being a gentleman,” I finally muttered.
Landon let out a sigh. “That would actually make me feel better.”
“Why?”
“Better to be a gentleman who doesn’t want to hurt a lady than be unfocused because of who we’re going up against.”
“I’m fine,” I protested.
“You still haven’t dealt with all the ramifications from your last battle with Mosaic, and you know it.”
“I’m not going to let it affect me.”
“Ian, you died multiple fucking times. There’s no way that’s not going to affect you now.”
“It’s not the same. That part of Mosaic is dead. So let’s leave it alone.”
Landon wanted to say more. I knew he did. But we didn’t have time for a therapy session. And God knew, I’d been through enough of those over the past three years since my first bout with Mosaic. I’d clawed my way back to mental stability while making sure nobody knew I woke up sweating and panicked nearly every night.
Landon was concerned, and he didn’t know the worst of it.
“And I was being a gentleman,” I insisted. “Or at least I didn’t want to be the asshole who hurt her.”
Landon grinned. “In that case, let me explain the finer nuances of the move known as Wax On, Wax Off. You might want to try it on your waitress friend.”