Critical Density Read online

  “Wow.” Hannah dropped to the bed. “So they really can do it? Because this is very complicated and dangerous.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Peyton grinned. “In spades. It’s what they live for.”

  “What about your sister? How is she doing?”

  “Good. Really good. She’s still doing physical therapy and seeing a shrink, but she’s back at work and piecing her life together.” Peyton paused and let out a breath. “She still has a lot of bad days. And god knows, she misses Dane so much it’s painful.”

  “I’m sure it is. I’m so sorry this happened to her.” ‘Sorry’ seemed like such a weak thing to say. “But you say she’s doing better now?”

  “Every day. Brianne’s a commercial photographer. She’s very successful, so she can pick and choose her assignments, although it’s taking her a while to get into the groove again. Blaze and I convinced her to stay in Tampa since her clients and her friends are here.” Her lips tilted in a tiny grin. “And especially since we got engaged.”

  “You must be so excited.”

  “I am. Neither of us planned on it happening, but when it did, well, we knew it was perfect. I feel as if I won the jackpot.”

  Hannah studied the other woman. She hadn’t really thought of Viper—or any of his partners—as having families or relationships, and wasn’t that just too weird? But Peyton seemed happy in every inch of her body, so maybe… She gave herself a mental shake. There were a lot more questions she was dying to ask, but she figured she’d pried enough. If Peyton wanted to share anything else, she would.

  “So how did you and Viper meet?” Peyton asked, emptying out the last bag and separating the items. “Sorry, I know I’m being really nosy, but these guys don’t exactly advertise. Did someone refer you?”

  Hannah shook her head. “No, nothing like that.” She looked down at the blouse she was holding. “This is going to sound very weird. I—uh—met Viper in a bar. I’d been—how do they say it?—sequestered in a hotel for two weeks while people decided the best way to finish destroying my life. I managed to get away and I was trying to hide from some guys who didn’t want me running around loose. I ducked into a bar and ended up on a stool next to Viper. He didn’t ask any questions when the guys poked their heads in looking for me. He just got me out of there, asked me what it was all about and took me for a ride in their big plane.”

  Then into his bed. She could still feel the warmth and strength of his hands, the erotic movement of his lips, the thickness of him inside her. She hoped the flash of heat that swept over her didn’t leave any telltale blush on her skin.

  Peyton burst out laughing. “Sounds about right for them. They never get involved in anything ordinary.”

  “I kind of figured.”

  “Did he tell you the history of Galaxy?”

  “Oh, yes. It still sounds like some wild tale.”

  “It does.” Peyton nodded. “But it gave them their dream. Now they can take cases no one else wants or that are too dangerous.”

  Hannah hoped the woman didn’t ask any more questions. She knew that, eventually, the details would come out. Especially when they were discussed over dinner that evening.

  “Hey.” Peyton put her hand on Hannah’s arm. “These guys are something extra special. It’s impossible not to fall for them. Ask me. It took me less than forty-eight hours.”

  “I know what you mean.” Hannah sighed. “It’s just so not me. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. No subtlety there.”

  Peyton burst out laughing. “Yeah, that’s about right. But, Hannah? You couldn’t find a better guy anywhere. I’m not kidding. And if you ever need to talk, I’m here. Okay?”

  “Thanks.”

  Right now, however, she wanted to put them out of her mind for a while, if she could. And trying on the clothes Peyton had brought was a good way to distract herself.

  * * * *

  Viper had grabbed his laptop from his duffel, set it up on the island counter and had just finished making a pot of coffee in his new contraption when Blaze arrived. He handed over a grocery bag with dinner fixings in it and set his own laptop up next to Viper’s. Hitching himself onto one of the bar stools, he opened the computer and booted it up, then took his weapon from his pocket and placed it next to the machine. Viper knew that, like all of them, he was always armed when he left the house and had his gun easily accessible. They all had a Concealed Carry license because, well, some habits should never be broken.

  “I started searching for stuff when you texted me from the plane,” Blaze told Viper, “although I think it’s way too soon for anyone to even have a hint she’s here. No one knows you’re the one who grabbed her out of that bar last night, so they’re probably still looking all over the Houston area. There’s no way they can make a connection with us.”

  “I figured,” Viper agreed, “but we need to keep on top of that. You never know what people like that can find out or what kind of network they have. And if somehow they find out she’s involved with us, they can use one of their drones to search. The kind they build can have a range of up to sixty thousand feet.”

  “Got it. We’ll all be digging deep to see if there’s any way they could have made a connection. I told Eagle and Rocket I’d do the research on Lowden. I spent the past three hours on it. They’ve been in business for ten years. Eric Lowden was an engineer at a major facility. Had a good job. Then one day he up and quit and a year or so later opened Lowden Tactical. No one knows where the money came from. We’re checking the source, but Viper? It’s buried pretty deep, which makes me very suspicious.”

  “Okay. What else?”

  “Greg Kingsley, his executive veep, was his first hire even before they opened the doors. Industry rumor has it that Kingsley helped him put together the top-notch crew he has now—designers, drone pilots, electrical engineers. Whatever.”

  “Anything not out in the open makes me suspicious,” Blaze told him. “That’s how we survived on our missions as long as we did. Any clues at all?”

  “No. I put Rocket on it. He’s got some sources he can reach out to.”

  Viper barked a short laugh. “Rocket’s collecting sources just about everywhere.”

  “Yeah, he’s always done that. A good habit to have. Meanwhile, let’s see what’s up with the situation at the heart of all this. You gave us the Reader’s Digest version of her story. We bought in because that’s how it works. We all get to bring in clients and we don’t bring in some piece-of-shit situation that will blow up on us.” Blaze shook his head. “But I gotta tell you, Viper. This one kind of has the makings of an explosive situation. If you pardon the pun.”

  “Your humor sucks, but yeah, it does have that. When you spend time with her today, you’ll agree with me on that.”

  “Okay, I have an open mind. But she’s trained specifically for this. People don’t just get jobs handling drones in situations like this without specific training. Right?”

  “Yeah,” Viper agreed. “I thought about that, so I Googled her. She has a master’s degree in Unmanned and Autonomous Systems from Embry-Riddle. They’re considered the number-one school for that, so she knows her stuff.”

  Blaze refilled his coffee mug. “So someone like her would be thoroughly knowledgeable in how to misdirect a drone flight. Right?”

  Viper nodded. “That person writes the programs for each drone flight then serves as the pilot, running it from their laptop. He or she wouldn’t be prone to making mistakes of this magnitude. It would have to be deliberate, and, Blaze? I might have only known her for less than twenty-four hours, but I don’t get the sense she’s the kind of person who would do that.”

  “Rocket ran a check on her last night. Nothing unusual in her bank accounts, but of course for something like this, if she got paid, the money would be sent offshore. He’s digging into that now.”

  “She didn’t do this for money,” Viper insisted. “In fact, I don’t believe she did this at all.”

  “I hear you, but you
know we have to check every angle.” He tapped keys on his laptop. “We haven’t really dug through all the layers yet, but so far nothing is ringing any bells. Honor student in college. Worked for another company before she got the job at Lowden, where she’s been for ten years. Seems to have no friends except the people she works with.” He glanced at Viper. “Have you checked to see what their reaction to all this is?”

  “I did a little searching on my phone while we were on the plane. You’ll love this. Lowden said it was a tragic malfunction of the drone. They’re examining the blueprints and program carefully, and searching for the drone operator, who seems to have disappeared.”

  Blaze snorted. “That’s the damn truth. Except they made her disappear to begin with.”

  “They did,” Viper agreed. “My thoughts are that they planned to keep her locked in the hotel until they could spirit her out of town, kill her and make sure her body was never found.”

  “Why not do it right away?” Blaze wanted to know. “Why hang on to her like they did?”

  “My guess? In case they needed her for something. In the meantime, they wanted her isolated, but in a place where they hoped she’d feel they were taking care of her. Otherwise, who knows what could have happened.”

  “No doubt,” Blaze agreed. “We need to find people to reach out to. Quietly.”

  “I think Rocket needs to get with Tom Hernandez. He knows everyone in the whole damn universe. He also would know if Senator Mark Hegman was an accident as Hannah says—although she insisted someone had to monkey with the drone’s programming without her knowledge—or the real target. And what would make him that target. Or at least he could make a guess. Either way, we want to know as much about Hegman as he can get for us.”

  Blaze scowled. “That opens the door to some very bad possibilities. Things I don’t even want to think about.”

  “It does.” Viper tapped his keyboard. “Meanwhile I also ‘found’ a list of Lowden personnel, but I think the first thing to do is ask Hannah the most likely people to be involved in something off kilter. Lowden has more than a hundred employees. I don’t think she has a relationship with all of them.”

  Blaze nodded. “That would be unrealistic. Okay, the others will be here shortly. Let’s get the ladies out here and see what’s what.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Hannah, meet two more of the partners.”

  Viper introduced Hannah to the team members who’d arrived shortly after Peyton and Blaze. She didn’t think she’d ever been in a room so filled with testosterone, even at Lowden Tactical. She shook hands with each of them, sensing the same power and strength she found in Viper.

  “This one’s John ‘Rocket’ Hardin. Rocket, say hello to Hannah Modell, our client.”

  Rocket’s hair was even darker than Blaze’s, almost midnight black. But where Blaze’s hair stopped at the nape of his neck, Rocket’s was long enough that he tied it back with a leather thong.

  “Don’t you worry, Miss Hannah,” Rocket told her in his soft drawl. “We’ll get this taken care of.”

  “And this,” Viper told her, “is Eagle. Vic Bodine.”

  He was the leanest of the partners, and possibly the shortest, although she judged that they all topped six feet. His hair was light brown but with an interesting white streak that ran from his forehead to the back of his head. He had piercing brown eyes and a hawk nose, and he reminded Hannah of something, but she couldn’t think what.

  “Like Rocket said, we’ll take care of whatever this is. You can count on us.” Eagle turned to Viper. “Rocket and I are all set to rock and roll. We did some looking last night, but it’s always better when we’re together and throw ideas out. Last night we sent some stuff to Blaze to put on his laundry list, too.”

  Blaze nodded. “I got it.”

  Hannah had wondered whether Viper’s partners would think he’d lost his mind taking her in. She was prepared to give him an out, if it was a problem, although she had no idea what the hell she’d do after that. She was floored, however, when they just accepted her without question. The smiles they gave her, along with the relaxed atmosphere they created, eased most of her discomfort and uncertainty.

  Damn! Luck had really been with her when she’d ducked into that particular bar. For the first time since the Lowden helicopter had fetched her back to the facility, she thought she might actually get out of this with her skin intact.

  She smiled at each of them, more grateful than they could imagine. “Thank you. Really. Thank you so much. I know Viper just dumped this on you with no warning—”

  “That’s how we work,” Eagle interrupted, holding up his hand. “We each have the ability to accept clients. When one of us does that, the rest of us buy into it. That’s just the way we’re set up.”

  “What if you already have a client you’re working with?”

  Eagle grinned. “We’re big boys. We can handle more than one at a time.”

  She shook her head, still dazed. “I’m still floored at the way you all took me on as a client without any reservation at all”

  “They were the same way with me,” Peyton told her. “They have incredible trust in one another, so they don’t question decisions like this. Someone brings in a client and everyone is all in for it.”

  Hannah blew out a breath. “Thank you for this. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t met Viper.”

  “Well, then,” Eagle drawled, “let’s get to it.”

  They all moved to the big round table on the patio, since it could accommodate all of them comfortably. The two men set up their own laptops, then placed their cell phones and their personal weapons on the table next to them.

  Hannah looked at Viper. “Are we going to be attacked on your patio?”

  One corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile. “Hope not, but we always like to be prepared.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t know what to say.

  “It’s just a precaution,” he assured her. “A habit we never break. Especially when we have a special package to protect.”

  Her throat tightened with emotion. Yes, she was paying them, but they were treating her as if she were someone special instead of just a business deal, accepting her because Viper vouched for her. Then there was the feeling of security that their presence gave her. She had breathed a sigh of relief when Viper had saved her bacon at the bar then unexpectedly turned out to be the answer to what she needed.

  Not to mention the mind-blowing sex.

  But somehow, all four of them together silently made her feel that her problem would be solved. They wore strength and commitment like a second skin. These men could have had Hero stamped on their foreheads and she’d believe it.

  “It’s so strange to see all of you with your laptops, even with the weapons,” she whispered to Viper. “Not that I know much about SEALs, but I kind of figured you’d be all action.”

  “Oh, we have plenty of action in our mission,” he assured her. “But one thing we learned with the SEALs is, don’t set out on an operation until you have every single bit of information you can get. Otherwise, the enemy can blindside you. So the mental action always comes first.”

  Hannah helped distribute cold drinks or coffee to everyone, whichever they preferred. Then she sat down with her own mug, smiling a little when Viper made sure she was seated next to him.

  Tension had gripped her all morning, lessening with Peyton’s arrival. The clothes had created a bond between them. Now the anxiety eased even more when the woman sat down on Hannah’s other side and gave her arm a quick squeeze. She wasn’t sure what would happen with Viper going forward, or even if she’d still be around here. She hoped that somehow, she and Peyton could remain friends, because in just a few hours, she felt they’d really connected.

  She thought it interesting that Peyton and Blaze had ended up engaged after her situation had been resolved. Hannah saw the strength of the connection between them. She didn’t want to get ahead of herself here, not when her futu
re hung in such a cloudy balance, but it gave her hope that maybe she and Viper might have a chance together.

  She had at least two people now that she completely trusted. Especially Viper. That was two more than she’d had. And maybe there were more, if she could count on the other guys. She also felt better for having changed into some of the new clothes. Peyton had managed to pick out all the right sizes, even the lingerie. Now, showered again and dressed from the inside out in fresh new clothes, the feeling of optimism came sliding back. She’d never been one to believe in fate, but she couldn’t deny that something had been in play, prompting her to pick that particular night to make a break for it and slide into that specific bar.

  She folded her hands in her lap, and the tension still gripping her eased even more when Viper reached over and closed one of his big hands over both of hers, giving them a slight, encouraging squeeze. Just being near him settled her jittery nerves, a fact that amazed and stunned her.

  Here she was, at the age of thirty-three, with what she considered to be a fairly low sex drive and a short list of what she called ‘associations’. She’d long since accepted that men considered her little more than a quick fuck on a convenient basis. ‘Lovers’, in her mind, was too romantic a word for what had happened. She’d never connected like this with anyone at Lowden. She just went to work, did her job and got it done. Her work was the entire focus of her life, that and her team.

  Yet suddenly, in the midst of all this, she’d met a man who was attracted to her and pushed her switch to fast forward. How is that possible?

  Memories of the previous night flash-flooded her mind. She had definitely never had sex like that in her life or formed that kind of instant connection with any man. The feel of his hard body…hard everywhere. His sculptured muscles, the soft brush of the hair on his chest, his strong hands as they squeezed her breasts, his mouth on her nipples. His thick cock filling her. His—