Heated Pursuit (Alpha Security #1)(5)
Hell, it fit. All of it. By plucking people in a society where no one would notice, Fuentes solved two of his problems—loose ends and productivity. While remaining stateside, Charlie, Alpha’s tech guru, had already gathered intel that led them to believe Fuentes was using the Honduran populace as his own personal test subjects. If Rachel had been about to cause him problems, the bastard wouldn’t hesitate in getting rid of her the most efficient way he knew how.
One minute was too long in the presence of a man like Fuentes. Rachel, about to hit a month, was quickly running out of time—if that time hadn’t already expired. Penny’s stern jaw told Rafe that she knew each and every one of the risks associated with this game of hide-and-seek, and she didn’t give a damn—because it was for family.
He didn’t have anything in the way of parents or siblings. Hell, he didn’t even have a goddamned houseplant. But Rafe understood that fierce loyalty all the same because it’s how he felt about each of his teammates.
But that didn’t mean she belonged here.
“What are the chances of you staying on a plane if we plop you onto one and fly your ass home?” Rafe asked, though he already guessed the answer.
“I’d be on the first flight back,” she said without batting a pretty green eye.
He didn’t doubt that for one damn second.
Penny met his gaze. “Look, I know you guys have a job to do here, and putting Fuentes out of commission is an important one. But so is mine. I’ll do whatever I have to do to prove I won’t be a liability. Put me through the gauntlet. I don’t care. But at least give me a chance before you send me on my way. Or try to.”
Rafe sent a sidelong glance toward his boss. Sean Stone had stayed not-so-miraculously quiet for the last few hours, absorbing everything around him. A man of few words, the former SEAL led Alpha Security with a firm, but fair, fist. No surprise to Rafe, Stone’s dark stare hovered over Penny to the point the redhead squirmed—albeit faintly.
“You want a gauntlet, then you got a gauntlet,” Stone agreed. His mouth remained in a tight line, nearly obscured by his dark, salt-and-pepper beard. “Whether you stay or go lies entirely in the hands of Alpha’s training coordinator. You don’t impress him, you go home and leave Fuentes and Rachel to us. We don’t have time to babysit and neither does she. Agreed?”
Rafe watched her steadfast gaze bounce from each of his teammates as if trying to figure out in whose hands she’d be placing her fate.
“Agreed.” She eventually accepted with a slight nod.
Only then did Rafe let a slow smirk ratchet up the corner of his mouth. Perceptive, Penny caught sight of it. The softly muttered curse that fell off her lips made him grin even wider.
*
Penny’s heart pounded, the upbeat thump-thump making her body vibrate from head to toe. Her arms and legs ached from overuse, and what had been a feminine glow an hour ago was now a profuse fountain of sweat. Not even during her most difficult haul-in did she have to work this hard.
She made a mental vow to punch her bail enforcement mentor the next time she laid eyes on his clean-shaved head. Vince had obviously been training her with kid gloves, and because of it, she was about to have her rear end handed to her on a platter—or more accurately, the floor mats.
In and out. Slow and steady. Hands on knees, she focused on the mechanics behind breathing as she shot a glare at the man standing smugly a short four feet away.
She had to go and suggest a damn gauntlet. And then she went even stupider and agreed to put her fate and Rachel’s fate in the hands of Alpha’s training coordinator. She should’ve known. She did know the second Rafe slowly slid his delectable mouth into a little smirk. Right now the only thing she had going for her was that it wasn’t him she’d been pitted against in the hand-to-hand demo. Of course, she wasn’t faring all that well against Logan either.
Beneath his sexually themed T-shirt and flirtatious Southern-boy smiles, Logan Callahan was as hard bodied and obnoxious as the rest of his team—something she neglected to see until he flipped her to the floor the first of many times. Now that her eyes were wide open, she was determined to take him down. Just as soon as she could stand upright without fear she’d teeter ass over foot.
“You done already, darlin’?” Head cocked, Logan rocked on the balls of his feet, his blond wavy hair falling in perfect position and not looking at all like they’d been at this for close to forty-five minutes. “Do you want to take a water break? Perch your sweet self in front of the AC? Or how about a nap?”
She drilled the former Marine with a glare that pulled his mouth into a grin.
“I’ll be taking a nap if someone doesn’t do something soon,” came a voice from the sideline. “Unless you’re trying to knock him over with a bat of your lashes, Red, you may want to actually move.”
Penny redirected both her glare and her focus to the man standing to her left. Though the rest of the team held up the wall with their backs and watched as if her match against Logan were better than Monday Night Football, it was Rafe of whom she’d been painfully aware.
The man wasn’t in-your-face sexy. You wouldn’t find him on the cover of GQ or walking down a runway wearing a pin-striped suit and expensive cologne. But between his chiseled body and the few days’ worth of dark stubble peppering his jaw, he could star as the main attraction in any woman’s hottest bad-boy fantasy.