Traceless

“He’s not superhuman.” But he was close. He’d saved her from an impossible situation once before and she had to believe he would somehow do it again. But at what cost?

When he received the call he’d sat hours away in Maryland. There was no way he could catch a commercial flight at that hour. But he was ingenious. He knew people. He never spoke about his time before starting the Corcoran Team or whatever he did years ago in black ops, but it conditioned him for situations like this. She knew that much.

The leader crouched down and met her at eye level. “I am well familiar with your husband.”

“How?” Because if he knew Connor from the old days, this guy might have the same skills and then... She couldn’t think about the “then” part.

“You don’t need to worry about that now.”

“He won’t get here in time.” Even if he did land in Utah by the deadline, she had no idea how he would know where to look for her.

Shifting her shoulders, she tried to move her hands but they stayed locked behind her. There was a little give in the ropes binding her ankles, but too much shifting and the chair would tip over. She didn’t see how that would help her.

She concentrated, trying to figure out if she still had her phone, but the ties lay flat and tight against her body and she didn’t see any signs of bulging from the cell. That was really bad news since her phone had a chip in it and could provide Connor with a beacon to find her.

The idea had been for Connor to know her location at all times. He insisted it was a matter of safety, not trust. Before she left home she viewed it as further evidence of his overzealous need to wrap her up and store her away.

All that had changed now. The chip, the constant analysis, his insistence she run recovery drills with the team struck her as sound planning. The ability to commandeer a flight in record time might turn out to be the perfect trait in a husband.

“For your sake, let’s hope you’re wrong about your husband’s tardiness.” The leader stood up but stayed bent over her. His mouth loomed close to her ear. “And stop fidgeting.”

“You think I’m going to sit here for hours and wait to die?”

He balanced his hands on his thighs and continued to lean in close. “Would you rather be unconscious? Because I could arrange that. Again.”

Footsteps clomped against the hardwood right before a second man appeared at the leader’s side. This was one of the guys who chased her through the charity building. “Or I can keep you occupied.”

Her stomach flipped as bile rushed up her throat. This one, taller and bulkier, wore a feral grin. His gaze never stopped roaming and the heat in his eyes promised pain.

The leader chuckled as he stood up and slapped the other man on the back. “Looks like my associate here is eager to step in and keep you company as you wait.”

“Yeah, I am. She ran last time. She won’t this time.” The guy reached out and the tips of his fingers touched her hair.

She flinched and threw her body in the opposite direction. “Don’t touch me.”

The chair rocked and teetered. She would have crashed to the floor, unable to brace for the impact, if the leader hadn’t clamped a hand down on her shoulder and steadied her.

He smiled at his friend. “It would appear she’s not interested.”

Fear pumped through her. Every bone shook and she fought to keep the tremor out of her voice. Panic and revulsion mixed until her head pounded. “No.”

“Are you sure?” This time the oversized attacker grabbed her hair. Balled it in his fist and pulled. “You must be lonely if you and your husband are really separated.”

The leader’s eyebrow lifted. “Well, Jana? Is he right? Are you looking for someone to keep you busy and your mind off your husband?”

Tears came to her eyes as the man ripped strands of hair from her head. She stopped moving—anything to keep him from getting a tighter grip. From pulling her closer to him or his hot breath blowing cross her cheek.

She inhaled through her nose, desperate to calm the nerves jumping around inside her. Tried to remember all of Connor’s instructions and the directions he called out during his impromptu safety drills. The most basic was to keep the attackers talking. Make them deal with her as a human being and not a product to be traded. “Tell me why you want Connor.”

The leader shrugged. “Tell me why you don’t.”

“He will kill you both when he gets here.”

The men looked at each other and laughed. The one with the death grip on her hair spoke up. “I doubt that.”

“Let me go.”

“That’s enough.” The leader pushed his friend back and crowded her.

She could smell the sweat on his skin and the heat pouring off him through his clothes. She fought to keep the dizziness from knocking her over as terror ran wild through her. “What are you—”

“Quiet or I will put one in your mouth, too.” A black slip of material dropped out of the leader’s hand and he waved it in front of her face. He came at her with his hands out. His thigh touched against hers as he practically stood on top of her.

“No.” She shook her head, swiveled and turned.

He grabbed her chin in a bruising hold. “Stop.”

When he slipped the material over her eyes, the room went black. She couldn’t make out shadows. Nothing. Terror gripped her in the darkness. Fear like she’d never known crashed over her as she gasped for breath.

Her panic only made the leader angrier. His motions turned jerky and more forceful. He tied the knot behind her head and pulled tight, causing pain to spread through the back of her head.

“Easy.” An unfamiliar male voice, barely a whisper, sounded directly behind her.

A hand cuffed the side of her head. “She’s a—”

“Right. Let’s get ready,” the leader said.

His voice she recognized. It was burned on her brain. He talked with Connor. He acted as if he knew all about her husband. And now he talked with someone who hid in the shadows behind her. Another man so quiet she hadn’t even sensed his presence.

“You have to give Connor more time.” She had no idea if that was true but she needed noise. Needed them to talk to her before all of the sensations bombarding her dragged her under.

Then a presence stood right behind her. Not touching but close enough for something in her skin to tingle.

“Don’t underestimate him.”

It was the voice. The one she didn’t recognize. And the fury in those three words had her shivering so hard she couldn’t stop.

* * *

Connor lowered the binoculars. Snipers used them for a reason. This set had increased magnification and brightness so that being more than two hundred yards away from his target didn’t matter at all. These worked for up to a thousand yards, so he could easily see two armed men walking around inside the cabin and the top of another person’s head. Even in the poor light he could tell the hair color matched Jana’s.

That was enough for him. He checked his bulletproof vest and started to leave the protective outcropping of rocks where he hid with Cam. Connor was careful not to make too much noise but rubble and rocks crunched beneath his feet.

Cam grabbed his arm. “Hold up.”

That wasn’t happening. Already Connor’s mind spun with a list of horrible things his wife could have endured. He needed her out of there right now. “Jana doesn’t have more time.”

“According to the GPS in her phone she’s not even in there.”

Throughout the entire tense flight across the country, they’d talked strategy. Connor’s second-in-command, Davis Weeks, stayed back at Annapolis headquarters and provided intel via the comm they all wore during operations. Even now the entire team listened in and stayed connected via earpieces and watches.

All Davis’s tracking and calculations put Jana at the charity headquarters a few miles away. Connor knew that was wrong and Davis agreed. “The GPS is too easy. It’s a setup,” Connor said.

Cam nodded. “Probably.”

“They would have found her cell and planted it somewhere else as a red herring. That’s what the guy on the phone was talking about when he dared me to find her.”

“Still, we need to be smart.”

“Listen to the man.” Holt Kingston made the comment in the comm then appeared in front of Connor two seconds later.

Connor blinked, trying to figure out why the entire three-man Corcoran traveling team surrounded him all of a sudden. He’d grabbed Cam and brought him along more because he was in the house when the call came than anything else.

Without Cam, Connor would have called in favors and caught a private flight on his own, only clueing the team in once he was gone. This was about Jana. It was his fight.

Cam clearly hadn’t agreed and had, instead, immediately sounded the alarm. Now Holt, the de facto leader of this squad who answered only to Connor, and Shane Baker showed up. They were supposed to be taking some time off after a tense kidnap rescue in Mexico. So much for vacation.

“When did you two get here?” Connor asked.

Shane shrugged. “We booked it over here after Davis and Cam called us in.”

“Which you should have done.” Holt emphasized his point by checking his gun. When he looked up again he was every inch the former special ops soldier—formidable, serious and lethal.

That described the entire team and was doubly true for the traveling members. They spent their lives on the road and seemed to prefer it that way. Corcoran operated as a private security firm. When the training they offered wasn’t followed and things went wrong, Corcoran cleaned up the mess.

Holt was the ultimate expert in planning victim extractions. With Cam, a guy who once worked in black ops so secret even Connor couldn’t find intel on the work, and Shane, Holt’s best friend and former partner in special ops, this was not a group a smart person took on.

Still, this was not just any assignment to Connor. “This is personal.”

Cam exhaled, his frustration clear in the lines on his forehead and tick in his jaw. “Jana is important to all of us.”

Holt talked right on as if he had the go-ahead. “Shane’s done some recon, and you’re right about the charity offices. Looks like a trap. There were four men stationed outside—hiding, but we found them—and no heat signatures inside.”

Shane hissed. “That doesn’t necessarily mean—”

“Don’t.” Connor took a threatening step forward. He knew what Shane was suggesting, that maybe Jana wasn’t alive, but Connor couldn’t hear it. Wouldn’t let it be true.

“How did you find us?” Cam asked, diffusing the tension pulsing around them.

“Your GPS works fine.” Holt looked around. “So why do you think she’s here over any cave in the area?”

Connor handed over the binoculars and pointed to the falling-down shack in the distance. “Davis said that was the nearest usable building.”

“Didn’t you hear Joel’s report?” Cam asked.

Holt shook his head. “The comm blinked out on us for a few minutes. Not sure why.”

“Joel repositioned a satellite to provide extra surveillance for us here.” Cam clicked a button on his watch and showed the small screen to Holt and Shane. “Joel also somehow broke into the charity office’s alarm feed and rewound to see Jana being dragged away there hours ago. A black truck drove in this direction. It looks like the abandoned one we nearly tripped over on our way here.”

Connor appreciated Cam filling in the blanks. Even saying the words, thinking about some man grabbing and hurting Jana, made fury thunder in his veins. Since Joel Kidd operated as their tech whiz and managed to get the confirmation, that was good enough for Connor.

Shane grunted. “Gotta love Joel’s tech voodoo.”

They had to move, but Connor needed to make a few things clear. He had priorities and they were all going to be bound by them. He was the boss and this was nonnegotiable. “Before we start—”

Holt held up a hand. “Connor.”

“Don’t say it, man.” Shane shook his head. “Just don’t.”

Connor hoped the operation went down smooth and fast, but he knew from experience things could go wrong. Innocents could get caught in the crossfire. “You save her. I don’t care what happens to me. You get her out alive and uninjured.”

“We all go in and we all come out.” Holt’s voice rose as he talked.

“Right.” Connor didn’t test his men further. They got it. Didn’t like it, but he knew they understood. He pointed at Shane and Holt. “You two cause a diversion at the front and draw the gunfire away from Jana and the inside of the cabin. Cam and I go in hard through the windows at the back.”

Cam nodded. “Done.”

“Let’s move.” Holt said the words then took off with Shane. They ran at a crouch, quiet and fast, blending into the horizon.

Connor and Cam took off in the opposite direction. Scanning the area, Connor watched for reinforcements and more attackers. Only two men with Jana struck him as light. It could mean the guy who wanted him to come to Utah depended on his subterfuge at the charity office working. Or it could mean something else. Either way, Connor was on edge as he kept his mind focused on the task ahead.

Per protocol, the comm stayed quiet as they circled wide to the back of the building. Connor ran to the far side. His back hit the wall and he slid down until he balanced on the balls of his feet. One hand snaked up as he tested the window and found it locked. He knew Cam had the same experience when the word locked came over the comm in an almost soundless whisper.

Connor wanted to spring up and look inside, but he waited, doing a mental countdown as he reached for patience and held for the signal. The line clicked once. That meant they were ready to go.

Four against two, and with Corcoran in the mix, Connor knew this should be an easy takedown. Clean and quick. But that depended on it being surprise-free and he’d been around long enough to know things rarely turned out that way.

A second click came right before a loud crash. Men’s voices filled the quiet air. They were yelling, then the bangs started. Gunfire and shuffling. More shouting.

Connor didn’t wait another minute. He jumped up and stepped out just far enough to get leverage. Ducking with his shoulder forward and head tucked, he ran. His body slammed into the window and the hit jolted through him. Glass shattered around him, the crackling and crunching filled his ears.

Gunfire continued to pop as momentum had him flying through the air and sliding across the hard floor on his hip. He rolled, keeping as much bare skin away from the sharp and broken edges as possible. When he stopped spinning, he looked up and saw Jana tied to a chair a few feet away. Shards of glass were scattered around her feet and a few caught the light where they stuck in her hair and across her lap.

He took in her wide eyes and the tear rolling down her cheek and scooted over to her, ignoring the crunching underneath him. When the shots grew closer and footsteps pounded on the front porch and near the open door, he gripped his knife and sawed through the bindings on her legs. After a few cuts, her ankle kicked free and she moved on the chair. It wasn’t until that moment that Connor noticed the second spray of glass in front of him and Cam crouched down, loosening the ties on her arms.

Just as they released her, the door slammed open. Connor didn’t hesitate. He yanked on Jana’s arm and tugged her to the floor on top of him. Firing with one hand, he used the other to shield her under him while they flipped over. Glass crushed under his arm and cut into the back of his hand where he cradled her head, keeping it off the dangerous floor.

One man peeked into the doorway then his head shot back out of sight again. The second time the guy’s gun came around first. Right when Connor spied one eye, the guy’s gun dropped and his body followed face forward to the floor. It took another beat or two for Connor to realize the thunder of gunfire had stopped and silence filled the room.

Blood oozed from the downed man’s head and puddled around his hair. Holt and Shane stepped over the lifeless body as they stormed inside.

Seeing his men snapped the stillness that had frozen Connor in place. “Everyone okay?”

“Two down and all is quiet.” Holt didn’t stop watching Jana as he talked.

Careful not to crush her underneath him, Connor looked down and stared into the big brown eyes he loved so much. Jana’s pale face couldn’t hide the high cheekbones and sexy mouth that drove him wild. After months apart there was so much he wanted to say. But not in front of an audience.

He went with the obvious. “Are you hurt?”

Without saying a word, she reached up and slipped a hand around the back of his neck. When she tugged his head down, he didn’t fight her. Inches separated them until his mouth covered hers and men standing around didn’t matter. Everything faded into the background except her and those lips and the kiss that sucked him under just as it always did.

His mouth wandered and his breath caught. He wanted to deepen the kiss. To ask her to come home right there, to forget all that had just happened and not take no for an answer. He settled for what she let him have now and tried to make that enough.

After nuzzling his nose in her hair, he forced his head to lift. “Jana?”

“You came.” She shifted and looked around. “And brought the big guns with you.”

How could she doubt he would get there? He would have stolen a plane if that’s what it took. “Of course.”

She still didn’t move. Just laid in his arms and let Connor keep the majority of her body off the glass on the floor.

Her gaze went back to him. “Did you get them all?”

“Yes.”

It was what she needed to hear and it wasn’t a complete lie. They got the ones they saw and the ones shooting back. As soon as he got her off the floor, he’d worry about the other men lurking out there and try to figure out why someone wanted him enough to take Jana. If the person knew him at all, he had to know touching her was a death sentence.

A smile kicked up at the corner of her mouth as she started to sit up with his help. “Funny, but I thought you were going to tell me it was too easy.”

He winced. His wife wasn’t stupid, so he didn’t treat her that way. “Well...”

The corners of her mouth fell. “Connor?”

“It was.”

Chapter Three

At Connor’s words, Jana shook her head and forced her mind to clear. She looked at the impressive devastation around her. The walls of the small cabin were all torn up from gunfire and glass covered the floor.

The front door hung from its hinges and a wall of muscled, fierce men surrounded her. She knew each of them would protect her. All would step in front of her and take a bullet. That’s who they were—quiet men who saved others for a living and refused the title of hero...no matter how much they deserved it.

Seeing Connor hit her like it always did. Made her breathless as her stomach performed a little dance. From the beginning, the combination of broad shoulders, black hair and dark eyes had battered her control.

He carried his emotional baggage with him and it showed in the serious expression on his face. He wasn’t pretty. He was tough and sexy and still had the power to make her heart stutter.

But the hesitation followed by the admission felled her. Putting aside the fear buzzing in her head and making her dizzy, she grabbed on to Connor’s arm and let him lift her to her feet. Pieces of glass hung from the ends of her hair and stabbed into her legs through her jeans, but she ignored all that.

She wanted to hide in a corner, but she forced her body to remain steady, even as she kept a hand locked around Connor’s arm. “How many men did you take out?”

“Two.”

That number was way off from what it should have been. She closed her eyes for a second and tried to remember the voices and faces of her attackers and kidnappers. Panic crashed over her but the feel of Connor’s hand over hers helped her push through it.

She swallowed hard to regain her voice and composure. “Let me see the bodies.”

With a hand skimming her hair, he frowned at her. “You sure?”

The soothing gesture almost did her in. The urge to curl up in his arms and let him make it all better nearly swamped her. She wasn’t weak and after a lifetime of being dragged around to camps and medical centers across the most poverty-stricken parts of the world by her doctor father she didn’t shake easily. But the knee-buckling kiss she gave Connor the minute the shooting ended was only part of what she wanted from him.

Drawing in a deep breath, she pushed her needs aside. There would be time later. They had so much to talk about and work through. She’d never intended to stay away from home this long but a simple solution to their complex issues still hadn’t hit her.

Now all she wanted was these men home and safe and her in bed with Connor over her. Once she survived this, maybe that could happen.

“I should check.” She eased up on the clench on Connor’s arm. If she let them see the terror still racing through her, they’d go deeper into male protection mode and she needed them to focus on what was happening around them, not on her.

“What?” Holt asked.

She glanced over at one of Connor’s team leaders. She’d liked Holt from the beginning. Raised in Hawaii by his Japanese mother, Holt protected his sister and fought for his country. He was rock solid, like all the team members were, but there was something about the way he usually maintained silence that made her smile. He backed up Connor and she knew her husband’s life was safe in Holt’s hands. Still, Holt wasn’t a “yes man” and Connor described that as Holt’s best quality.

“To see if these two were there when I got trapped at the charity.” Because if they weren’t then there were even more men out there ready to hunt Connor down.

He put a hand on each forearm and turned her to face him again. His intense stare bored into her. “What does that mean?”

“Back at the office two came in the front, waving guns around. I ran to the back and there were four more out there. Waiting.”

Holt shook his head. “Damn.”

He motioned to Shane and each man took an arm of the dead man and dragged him to the porch. They moved fast and kept low. The guy got a quick patdown then she saw a flash. Before any of it registered in her brain they were back inside.

Shane leaned the broken door against the frame and each took a position on the side of the opening and looked into the dark night. He stopped only long enough to hand something off to Cam.

“You’re lucky to be alive.” The chain continued as Cam pivoted and stepped between Jana and Connor, holding something in his palm.

“They clearly wanted me alive to get to Connor here.” She glanced down and noticed Cam held a cell. With a swipe of his thumb, a man’s face appeared on the screen. Eyes closed and face bruised. She leaned in closer to get a better look. “What’s this?”

“I got a photo of the guy Holt took down outside and sent it to Davis for facial identification.” Cam moved the cell around. “This is it.”

A shiver ran through her when she recognized the guy as the one who touched her hair. “That’s one of them. One that chased me, I mean.”

Connor broke his hold on her and tapped a finger against his ear. “Hey, Davis, any luck on the ID check?”

Shane frowned as he touched his ear. “Davis?”

Holt followed suit and did a comm check. When he shook his head, she knew they’d somehow lost contact with the Maryland office. The way Cam and Connor crowded around her only highlighted the potential new danger.

“What happened?” she asked, amazed at how small and quiet her voice sounded.

Connor motioned for Cam to pocket the phone. “Everyone stay on guard. Could be nothing.”

The shaking in her bones suggested otherwise. If she shook any more her teeth would rattle. “Or it could be something, like a blocked signal.”

She knew just enough to be frozen in fear. There were devices, ways to keep people from communicating on an internal system. Ways to cut people off and make them more vulnerable.