Master No (Masters and Mercenaries, #9)(7)

“Nah, that was from all the porn,” Hutch shot back.

“Boys, do I look like I need to listen to this argument?” Ten gave his men a stare guaranteed to have them falling in line.

He might not be a CIA agent anymore. He might have been disavowed. Hell, there was probably a price on his head, but he was still in charge of his damn team. Well, the ones who had been dumb enough to follow him.

At least he still had them. It was funny how knowing they’d been willing to give up their careers had made the whole “US government turning against him” thing easier to swallow. If he was half a man he would send them all away, but he’d proven time and time again what a ruthless son of a bitch he was. He needed them. And he needed Taggart.

The conference room door opened and Big Tag strode in followed by his half brother, Case. Any issues the two had in the beginning seemed to be resolved, and things had gone exactly the way Ten had always feared they would.

Case Taggart was Big Tag’s man now, the way his twin Theo was. It was precisely the reason Ten hadn’t mentioned them to Tag in the first place. He’d needed time to get two of the best soldiers he’d ever recruited loyal to him. He should have known in the end it wouldn’t matter. Blood won out. It always did.

In the end though, he knew every man here would be Tag’s, and that was all right.

After all, Tennessee Smith was fairly certain he wouldn’t come out of this mission alive.

“Seriously? How am I supposed to take you seriously when you’re wearing a baby?” Ten asked. The six and a half foot pain in Ten’s ass was wearing something he’d only recently learned was called a sling. It was pink and covered Tag’s chest in a large swath. There was also a tiny baby hand poking out of the top, as though the infant was reaching for her father.

Wanted. Kala or Kenzie…whichever kid it was…that baby was wanted. That child got carried around and cuddled close. No one had ever tossed her away like a piece of garbage.

Tag put a big hand on the sling as he lowered himself into the conference room chair. “She’s fussy. When Kenzie’s fussy, she likes to be in the sling. You’re lucky because Kala’s hanging off her mama’s boob right now or I would likely have them both. What can I say? They like their dad.”

Their dad had turned this whole office into a freaking day care center so he didn’t have to place his precious babies out in the world. He could tell Big Tag was going to be a helicopter parent. An Apache attack helicopter parent.

“So are we a go? Did your girl do her job?” It was the question he’d wanted answered for weeks.

Erin Argent and Theo Taggart had been sent undercover months ago. Their mission—to get Faith McDonald to trust them. To bring her back to Sanctum. They’d been hired on as bodyguards for the small clinic Faith ran in Liberia. Now they were stuck in quarantine because they’d done their job in the middle of the worst urban Ebola outbreak in history.

Tag sat back in his chair. “Erin says we’re a go. By the time they land in Munich, I’ll have sent Faith a temporary contract and information about you. You’re going to be her contact with Sanctum and you’ll be her escort the first few nights here. I suggest you find some of that charm you used to have and get her interested before she steps foot in the club.”

“Why not explain to her that I’m the only Dom available?”

“Because she understands the way things work and that would be highly suspicious. I don’t want to scare her off. We need to figure out what her type is and go from there. All Erin will tell me is she doesn’t like douchebags. Unfortunately for her, that’s all I have here.”

In the past such sarcasm from Tag would have gotten Ten’s middle finger to make an appearance, but he couldn’t work up the will to care anymore. He only cared about one thing now and that was bringing down Hank McDonald. With Phoebe safely and happily married to Jesse Murdoch, he could focus all of his attention on burning the man who’d burned him. More importantly, Hank McDonald was the man responsible for getting Jamie Grant killed.

James. His brother, not by blood but by choice. Jamie and Phoebe had been his only family in the world, and McDonald had sold out Jamie’s unit, given them over to be tortured by the enemy.

McDonald was going to pay, and Ten didn’t care how many virtuously named daughters he had to go through to do it.

“So what you’re saying is if she comes to Sanctum and has zero interest in me, I have to let her find another Dom.”

“Yeah,” Tag replied. “I put in the no-caveman-calling-dibs rule years ago. I thought we’d spent months on training, man. What about safe, sane, and most importantly consensual do you not get?”

Case leaned forward. “Look, according to Erin, Faith is pretty attracted to Theo. Ian and I have been talking and I’ll take a crash course in D/s over the next couple of weeks. If you can’t get her to bite, maybe I’ll be able to.”

She was attracted to Theo? Well, it wasn’t so surprising. Theo was young and strong and he didn’t have a body covered in horrific scars. Theo was an open-hearted idiot who smiled for the sake of smiling. Naturally she would want Theo.

“This is my op.” And he didn’t want anyone else messing with it. If he couldn’t get into Faith McDonald’s bed, he couldn’t get on to that island and into her daddy’s house. All his intelligence pointed to the information he needed being in that house.