Master No (Masters and Mercenaries, #9)(120)

“I’ll have someone watch her apartment,” Tag promised. “Now, we’re going to head out. Hutch claims this is the best time to do recon on the compound. We’re going to go in quietly and get out the same way. It’s strictly intelligence gathering.”

What Tag wasn’t saying is the intelligence they wanted was the location of Des’s and Theo’s bodies. They would keep to the shadows unless they had an absolute free ride to pick them up.

Tag would get the job done. He would bring his brother back and they would all go home to try to find a way through the grief.

Ten looked at the clock and stood up, stretching his body. “We’ll be gone before you get back. I’ll have a detailed report on the entire operation on your desk tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll be ready to do anything you need me to do. Faith and I are going to stay in Dallas for the next few months.”

Tag held a hand out. “We’ll be more than happy to have you around. Be safe.”

Ten shook his hand. “You too, brother.”

As they walked away, Faith crossed her arms over her chest. “What were you talking about? My father doesn’t have a mistress.”

He hated being the bad guy with her. It was odd because he’d spent years being the bad guy with absolutely everyone in his life. “Sweetheart, your father sees a woman in DC on a regular basis. Her name is Victoria Chandler.”

She shook her head. “He might see someone, but she’s not his mistress. My father’s been impotent for fifteen years. We’ve tried everything. Every new drug that comes out, he’d give it a shot. I did his checkup six months ago. Trust me, if he’s got a mistress, he’s not sleeping with her.”

That made no logical sense. “He visits this woman on a regular basis, Faith. If he’s not having sex with her, what would he be doing?”

“I would say maybe they’re friends, but my father doesn’t have friends. He has business contacts. He places zero value on friendship. If he was trying to keep up the appearance of being functional, why would he keep a mistress secret? My dad is the type who would pay a woman to date him and be done with it.”

“He’s run on family values platforms,” Ten mused. “He talks about your mother in his speeches to this day.”

“Yes,” she said, her every word flavored with bitterness, “Dad is good at playing the grieving widower.”

If the relationship wasn’t about sex…

“She’s in banking. That’s how he’s moving the money. We’ve been looking in the wrong place. We’ve been trying to tie him to the cash, but he’s smarter than that. He’s used this woman to launder his funds for years.” Ten picked Faith up, enveloping her in a hug. “We’re going to get him and we’re going to take down everyone who helped him.”

She hugged him tightly. “And my sister? Tell me you’ll get her, too. She’s dangerous, Ten.”

He tempered his exuberance. Justice for Jamie meant Faith having to see her father and sister in jail. No matter how much they deserved it, it was going to hurt her. He kissed her forehead. “Yes, I’ll get her, too. I’ll try to keep it as quiet as possible. I don’t want to hurt your clinic, but we need to take down the executives at Kronberg who allowed this experimentation to go on.”

She put her head on his shoulder, not letting go. “Yes. They have to be stopped.”

They stood there for the longest time, gaining comfort and strength for the long journey home.



Twenty minutes later, Ten looked over the plane. It was a small plane, what he would call a puddle jumper. The couple who owned the place used it to get from Miami to here on a regular basis. He would use it to take Faith home. He settled the little luggage they had in storage. When they got to Miami, he would take Faith shopping so they didn’t stand out from the crowd at Miami-Dade airport. She needed a purse. It was the little details that could trip a person up. A woman without a handbag would stand out. They needed luggage, at the very least carry-ons. TSA tended to question travelers who didn’t fit the norms.

He turned, looking back at the house. Faith walked up the pathway. She’d placed a baseball cap on her head and held another one for him. Caps hid hair color. If they kept their faces down around security cameras, it was likely no one would be able to remember much about them.

He had to get her to Dallas. Once they were in Dallas, he could breathe again.

“I left a note for Erin. I told her I think she should stay with us when she gets back home. Being in that house without Theo is going to be so rough.” She gave him a sad smile. “So I might need to not be naked for a while.”

He pulled her close. Whatever she needed. “Just know that at some point, those clothes are gone. We’re going to have a fully naked honeymoon.”

“That should be fun.” She looked up at him. “So you know how to fly this thing. The airstrip looks small.”

“Hey, it’s not made out of dirt, so I’m calling that a win. I’ve flown small planes many times before. It’s all part of the super-spy school I went to. I got an A in ‘using small planes to flee your enemies’ class.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Oh, god.” She pulled away, her eyes widening.

Ten immediately went for the SIG in his holster, but as he turned, he saw what Faith had seen, what he’d missed before. Hutch had missed it, too, likely because of the storm and the brilliant way the small team had camouflaged themselves. They were dressed in dark green and eased out of the jungle with the long practice of predators.