Fearless (Somerton Security Book 3) Read online

  “Having a home isn’t the same as having a way to get there. Even if I wanted to, even if Cole didn’t need me, there’s too much in the way, too many who want me dead.”

  “Then let’s clear a path.”

  She shoved her fists into her pockets. She’d tried, damn it. But there was just an endless series of questions and every time she got close to answers, the price on her head climbed and the questions multiplied. She needed proof. Names. Documents. Witnesses. She had to find someone who’d been part of the experiments who was still capable of exposing them.

  “Just like that, huh?” She snapped her fingers. “Easy peasy?”

  “You know better than anyone that searching for something is never as simple as we want it to be.”

  A truth that had been drummed into her head over and over and over again in sniper school. She could study the same landscape day after day, and still miss the target. It wasn’t enough to look for the man hidden in the weeds—he was as adept at hiding as she was at stalking. No, she had to look to the weeds themselves. Learn to see the way they moved or bent around an object they’d been used to conceal in the first place.

  “Sometimes the smallest detail reveals the game.”

  “And you have that?” she asked. It wouldn’t be the first time. Pierce had been a light in a life that so often left her cold and alone in the dark. He’d brought her rumors. Names. Leads.

  A few had even led to answers. One had led her to Curtis Strauss, a program director within the agency. They’d met for an exchange. Cooper had walked away with a thumb drive and her life.

  Thanks to the CIA, Strauss hadn’t been so lucky.

  But his files had explained enough that she’d stopped running from Cole long enough to try to figure out how to save him. But she needed so much more than a few redacted files.

  “No,” Pierce said slowly, his pale green eyes glinting like sea glass. “But William Bennett might.”

  Cooper froze, a rush of heat across her skin clashing with the blade of ice between her ribs.

  Will.

  “You do know him,” Pierce said as if she’d verified something he’d long suspected. “Professionally?” he asked before his smile turned amused and a little bit wicked. “Intimately? Both?”

  She didn’t respond. Partly because Pierce wanted her to, and partly because she didn’t have an answer he’d understand. Hell, she didn’t understand it. She and Will had never met—not really. And yet, she knew him. Liked him. Respected him, which frankly to her mind was more important.

  And though she rarely allowed it, she still thought about him.

  Recalled his awful sense of humor.

  Remembered his rumbled laugh in her ear.

  Relived the stone-cold calm in his voice as he’d followed her instructions and let her lead his team through narrow streets and blind turns and out of a city desperate to kill them.

  And later, when he’d somehow magicked her contact details out of thin air, he’d used that same damn voice to make her laugh . . . and make her moan.

  So many dirty promises.

  So many casual conversations.

  But they’d never met. Certainly hadn’t slept together.

  And yet . . . she knew him. Professionally. Personally. Intimately.

  And she didn’t like hearing his name in Pierce’s mouth.

  “The blush suits you, love. Though it does give a man pause. Makes him wonder what it takes to put it there.”

  “Keep wondering.” She brushed him off with a roll of her eyes. “And anyway, I supplied some last-minute support to his team.” She shrugged. “I was already there, and they were desperate. I coached Bennett through the city, took out a few obstacles, but that was it.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Why is his name coming up now?” she asked and realized with a certain sense of sadness that she wasn’t all that surprised. The last time she’d seen Will—through a scope and at a distance—had been the same day Cole had done his damnedest to kill her. Cooper had never been one for coincidences, but it had taken months before she’d understood how closely those two events were related.

  And realized just how much Will would hate her.

  “A little over a year ago, Bennett was killed after an operation went bad in the jungles of Colombia . . .”

  She sucked a breath, absorbed another blow she hadn’t anticipated, but didn’t say anything.

  Pierce didn’t comment, but that damn mouth twitched. “Or so the story goes.”

  Relief, heady and addictive, rushed through her before she could quash it.

  “Sound familiar?” Pierce stepped back and pulled a pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his coat.

  Cooper had never deluded herself into believing her situation was somehow special. That she’d been the first person the US government had found it easier to kill or forget about entirely. Hell, the CIA had told her how easily they’d disavow her if she were ever caught working in a foreign country.

  But then, she hadn’t been caught at all, had she? And she hadn’t been abandoned. She’d been marked for death.

  “He was left behind?” She forced the next question past a clogged throat. “Accident? Or something else?”

  “Initially?” he said with a shrug. “Looks like it was just plain bad luck.” He withdrew a silver-plated lighter with a weathered monogram Cooper had never been able to read. “Intel says Bennett was seriously injured and another man died. His team had reason to believe him gone.”

  “But?” And oh, there was definitely a but. Judging by the way Pierce was drawing this out, it was one she’d probably love and hate in equal measure.

  “But dear William lived . . . and someone high up in the Department of Defense looked the other way.”

  “Why?”

  “Best guess based on my intel? Bennett’s life was traded to cover up dirty deals and a large payday.” He shrugged. “War profiteering of one sort or another.”

  “Charming.” She snorted, wrinkling her nose as the scent of burning paper and cheap tobacco hit her. “But I fail to see what this has to do with me.”

  “You and Bennett have more in common than you realize,” he explained, exhaling a steady stream of smoke through his nostrils. It curled on the eddies of his breath and disappeared into the dark. “Smart. Driven. Distinguished military careers. Both hand selected for Special Forces training. Never did make it as far as sniper school, but—”

  “Nobody’s perfect.” These were all things she knew already, so where was he going with this? “Get to the part that’s relevant, Pierce.” And quickly, because all of her energy was going into blocking out the thought of everything Will had no doubt suffered over the last year.

  Pierce grinned, then puffed out a practiced ring of smoke. “Bennett has some interesting friends, present company included, of course.” He took another drag, the tip of his cigarette a glowing ember in the gloom. “Including one Felix Harrigan. Know the name?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’ll give you a hint—he died one sunny afternoon in Afghanistan. Seems a sniper permanently interrupted treasonous plans.”

  Blood drained from her face to pool slick and churning and rancid in her stomach.

  “Now you remember.”

  Of course, she did. She’d never forget it. The heat of the sun. The bite of wind-tossed sand. The punch of the rifle and the clink of the shell.

  That was the job. Scope the scene. Sight the shot. Pull the trigger.

  “What does that have to do with Will?”

  “Harrigan made a deposit in his name.”

  “Money? How much?”

  “Don’t be common,” Pierce scolded her on a sigh. “You know full well it’s never that simple.”

  “Currency, then,” she argued. Because if she’d learned anything, it was that everything had a price.

  It was why the CIA employed people like Cooper, and why they recruited men like Pierce—people with fewer scruples, extensive con
tacts, and the ability to go where other assets could not.

  He dipped his chin, the tilt of his neck a silent touché. “True enough. But in this case, no money changed hands.”

  “What then?” she asked on a ragged, frustrated breath.

  “Don’t know for sure,” he said with a shrug and a long exhale of smoke. “What I can tell you is that Felix Harrigan has a safe deposit box in Panama City . . . one in Will Bennett’s name.”

  Evidence? A thrill, illicit and hungry and with the teeth of a starving predator, rushed through her.

  Pierce pushed something into her hand. When he pulled away, Cooper opened her palm to find an old receipt, a string of numbers scribbled on the back. “Coordinates?”

  He nodded. “Damnedest thing—the second chatter surfaced that Bennett might not be dead after all, a contract hit the net. Someone doesn’t want Bennett anywhere near that box, and they’re willing to kill to make sure he never gets close. If that doesn’t make it priceless, not much will.”

  Cooper swallowed. Oh, but there was a price. She’d paid it—as had the men she’d killed on the CIA’s orders.

  “What’s the contract value?” she asked, worry and excitement fighting a bitter war in her stomach.

  “A hundred and fifty—but it’ll climb fast. Be careful, Cooper. Combined, the two of you are a lucrative day’s work.”

  Half a million dollars. That was what her life would be worth the second she was so much as rumored to be near Will.

  “But not enough to tempt you?” she asked, mostly because she knew it would annoy him.

  Pierce sniffed. “Take more than money for me to kill a friend.”

  “Is that what we are?” She didn’t believe it for a second. Pierce wasn’t the sort of man to allow himself friends, no matter what they’d done for him.

  He let his gaze slide from her face, down her body, then back up again. He cocked his head to the side and pulled that damn charming grin to his mouth. “Why? You have something else in mind?”

  Not in this lifetime, and he knew it. There was affection there. Loyalty, of one shade or another. But nothing between them could ever be casual and neither of them could ever afford to trust the person they took to their bed. A criminally stupid mistake for anyone in their position.

  “How do you know all this?” she asked, clutching Bennett’s location in her hand and fighting back a shiver.

  “Because I’m the best,” Pierce said with a flippant shrug. “And I still have friends. Some of them have done well for themselves—”

  “And some of them owe you favors.”

  Pierce grinned. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that I’m not a man you want to be in debt to.”

  “Handy, then, that you’re in mine.”

  “A reality I’m not at all comfortable with.” He dipped his head toward the piece of paper he’d pressed into her palm. “See what you can do to rectify that, would you?” He flipped up the collar of his jacket and stepped through the doorway, the patter of rain tap tap tapping against his shoulders.

  When she didn’t say anything, Pierce turned back as if the soak of the evening shower didn’t even register. “Move fast. I wasn’t the only one asking questions. South America is about to get very, very hot.”

  “How much time do I have?”

  He shrugged. “Bennett might have a week, if he’s lucky. You don’t have near that much time. Cole tracked you here—you need to get Bennett and go dark as fast as possible. You have a way out of Colombia?” he asked casually.

  She nodded, already putting the pieces into place.

  “Care to share?” he asked, the smile in his voice if not on his face.

  “I’m not nearly stupid enough to tell you that.”

  “You don’t trust me?” he asked, palm to his heart.

  She just stared at him.

  “You’re learning.” He dropped his hand, caught her gaze, and skewered her with approval. “Good luck, Cooper.” He disappeared into the night, his voice floating back to her. “You’re going to need it.”

  She lingered, giving Pierce plenty of time to slip into the maze of the favelas. By the time she left the darkened alleys and hidden turns, making her way back to streets crowded with the micro-economy the slums supported, night had truly fallen, and she’d memorized the coordinates.

  She paid for a quick meal from a hot grill and fed the paper to the open flames as she ate.

  She knew exactly where to find William Bennett, though she couldn’t be sure who she’d find waiting for her. Captive, traitor, soldier, or the man she’d tried so hard to forget—it didn’t matter.

  She didn’t care.

  Couldn’t afford to.

  Will was her path forward, and God help any man who stood in her way.

  Chapter Two

  The Mountains of Colombia

  “You hit like my sister.”

  Will Bennett wheezed as he took a vicious jab to the ribs, then a second blow to the kidneys strong enough to ensure he pissed blood for days. He stumbled sideways, six inches of mud pulling at his bare feet, sucking him in and weighing him down. Fever and dehydration made him slow but fuck it. What did he have to lose?

  Worst case scenario: this time, they killed him.

  He chuckled and forced his feet to hold him. Hell, best case scenario was that this time they killed him.

  Win-win, as far as he was concerned. Just so long as he could stop fighting, stop dying, stop existing in this hellish limbo between life and death.

  He spat blood and brought his fists back up. “Actually, I take it back. My sister would have made that combination her bitch.” He grinned, tongued the edge of a tooth that wobbled, and tossed out, “Guess that means she’d make you her bitch, too.”

  Matías studied him, his face a ragged and scarred; curdled by a life spent in the pursuit of malicious amusement.

  “You know ‘bitch’?” Will asked. Matías, like most of the men surrounding him, spoke little to no English, and the few who did speak English knew better than to use it to communicate with Will. But then, they didn’t know that thanks to his Delta training, Will was conversational in a half-dozen languages—including Spanish.

  He didn’t intend to educate them.

  Much.

  “Puto?”

  Matías went stiff, the insult carving canyons of rage across his face.

  “He knows,” Will said, tossing Diego a wink. The ham-fisted bastard was as violent as he was stupid, which in this hell hole passed for overachieving. But the combination had earned him a spot as Matías’s second.

  Diego glanced between them, confusion lining his brow.

  Apparently, Will would have to spell it out.

  “Eres su puta, sí?”

  Rage slid over Diego’s confusion like a tide over sand. He charged, but Matías stopped him with a barked command. Pity. Diego was an easy mark and an easier win.

  And Will really, really wanted a win today. Wanted the pleasure of breaking someone else’s bones. The vicious joy of splitting someone else’s skin.

  Instead, Matías stepped forward. Of all the men in camp, he was the most measured, the hardest to manipulate. Dangerous, where the others were just mean. He wasn’t here by happenstance, wasn’t a victim of a shitty economy or a rough start. This life suited him as if it had been custom cut and tailored, and every morning, as the sun bled across the horizon, Will watched him slip into the role he’d chosen.

  Cold, calculating, and cruel, Matías was a devil among men pretending to be demons.

  In a fair fight, it’d be no contest.

  But what in the last year had been fair?

  Matías wanted Will to break.

  Will wanted him to die.

  Neither would win.

  But Will would lose, just as he had every time he’d been dragged from his cell and forced to fight for his life . . . and for the enjoyment of those who’d imprisoned him.

  Violence for the sake of it. For the sick pleasure of others wh
o’d enjoyed it. It went against everything he believed about himself, about his training, about his job.

  He’d hated it, hated them.

  At first.

  But as months had dragged on, his hatred, like home-brewed moonshine, had aged. Become more potent, more layered . . . and burned away nearly everything else. Hate kept him on his feet. Hate kept him fighting. Hate and the heavy blanket of anger that they’d done this to him kept him going.

  But there would be no victory, not for him. The half-dozen assholes surrounding him, cheering, betting, spitting, would step up if Matías fell—an endless cycle of men ready to test themselves against the American. The prisoner. The Special Forces soldier.

  He dodged a kick to his knee and blocked a punch to the face.

  But no one said he had to make it easy. Or painless, he thought, throwing a combination that sent Matías reeling on a curse.

  Will would make them work for a win. But he couldn’t refuse. Then they brought out the ants, the knives, the pliers.

  Torment was inevitable, but the choice of tormentor was still his.

  So he persisted.

  It was just what he did. What he’d always done.

  He’d fought through the grief of losing his parents. Brawled his way through tumultuous years in foster care. Worked himself to the bone to raise a kid sister with a smart mouth and a give-no-shits attitude. Fearless persistence had led him through boot camp and eventually carved a path that led straight to Q Course.

  He’d tested himself against everything life and the army could throw at him and, in the end, earned a place on Delta Force.

  His colleagues called him a determined son of a bitch.

  His sister called him a stubborn ass.

  For so long, Will had simply considered failure beneath him. Something other, weaker people did. People who didn’t know how to keep getting up.