In Plain Sight by Hope Anika
Chapter Two
“You’ve lost your goddamn mind.”
It was a distinct possibility.
“You owe me,” Max retorted, ignoring the guilt that nipped at him. He wouldn’t be calling in this marker unless it was necessary; the man on the other end of the line had saved his ass too many times. “I need you on this, brother.”
Ryker Wilder snorted. “Asshole.”
“Probably. Doesn’t change the fact that I need the best on this, and that’s you.”
Another snort. “Get your hand off my cock, man. It’s embarrassing.”
An unwilling smile broke the tense set of Max’s mouth. “But it’s so big and hard.”
“Screw you,” said his closest friend without heat. “And the circus pony you rode in on.”
“Carnival, not circus,” Max corrected. “Carousel, not pony. No biting.”
A rough laugh sounded. “Dickhead.”
Yes. Max’s smile faded. “A popular opinion today.”
A moment of silence. Then, “You’re serious?”
“Unfortunately.” He looked out the tinted window of the nondescript sedan he’d rented and surveyed his surroundings like a cat studying a field of pasture grass in search of mice.
Hunting, always hunting.
Something he thought he’d left behind in the sands of Afghanistan, only to discover that the battles never ended, that war was an endless human condition. Civilians liked to frame their conflicts in far more refined terms—right, wrong, justice—but good and bad were just a matter of perspective, and blood was blood.
“Goddamn it,” Rye muttered, and Max felt relief arc through him. “You’re a prick.”
Like the king of all pricks on a big old dickhead throne.
“I try.” But something in him unclenched. “Thank you.”
Rye only grunted. “Tell me what I need to know.”
Lightning speared the sky, splintering through the boiling violet clouds that churned above the giant body of water Max was parked beside. The phone he held buzzed softly as the electrical charge sliced through the satellite connection.
A burner phone and a toy compared to the tech the Bureau handed out, but far safer than the official phone on the seat beside him. He’d removed the chip and battery the night before, right after he’d managed to outrun the kill team that had blown apart the Bureau’s west side safe house—and him damn near along with it.
The bullet wound on his shoulder throbbed, reminding him that he hadn’t escaped unscathed, but the kid who occupied the backseat behind him had, and that was all that mattered.
He looked into the rearview mirror; fourteen-year-old Selena McLean stared back at him, her intense green eyes unwavering behind the lenses of her black eyeglasses. Her gaze glittered with intelligence and a piercing, intent awareness that made any thought of protecting her from the ensuing conversation useless.
She’d witnessed the execution of her entire family. She wanted justice, and Max suspected, revenge. Considering what she’d been through in the last twenty-four hours, he expected hysteria and tears, but Selena was eerily calm and collected. Treating her like a kid would only work against him because, for this plan to succeed, she had to be on board.
And she deserved the truth. The FBI had failed her, wholly and without exception.
“Two nights ago, the home of a man named Allan McLean was broken into,” he said finally. “Allan, his wife Tess, and their three boys were shot at point-blank range. The house was ransacked and set on fire. The sole survivor was Allan’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Selena, who was on the roof with her telescope.”
“Did she see it?”
“Yes.” He paused. “Allan McLean was the Bear’s CPA. And the shooter was Leland Dolan. ”
“Well, hell.”
Pretty much. Aristotle “the Bear” Dolan was the owner and operator of Dolan Enterprises, one of the largest shipping conglomerates in the world. The company shipped all manner of goods, both legal and illegal; it was common knowledge among the federal agencies that Dolan was responsible for trafficking nearly eighty percent of the world’s guns, drugs, and people. The Bear shrouded himself in a façade of legitimacy—he liked to portray himself as a philanthropist and entrepreneur—but at his core, he was rotten.
Worse, he had a network of informants that permeated even the most sacrosanct of government bodies—as proven by his ability to uncover the location of an FBI safe house within three hours of it being utilized. And because only five people had known Selena McLean was in that safe house, Max had a problem. A big problem.
He had a mole.
“The Feds don’t do homicide,” Rye said. “How is this your problem?”
“McLean was negotiating a WITSEC deal to give up Dolan.”
“Jesus. You’re in the shit, Maxie.”
Nothing new there.“Three hours after we arrived at the safe house, we got hit.” Max’s arm throbbed, and the memory of Farland’s head exploding made cold fury burn through his chest. “One of my people is dead, and some asshole shot me. I grabbed the kid and ran, and we managed to ditch them on the el train, but they’re out there, waiting.”
“Better and better. What’s the plan?”
“Fiona.”
“The same Fiona you abandoned ten years ago at the foot of your parents’ graves?”
Leave it to Rye to rub salt in that wound.
But then, Rye had never approved of Max’s relationship with Fi. Or lack thereof. Rye had no family; to him, family was something you treasured, not something you deserted.
No matter your reason.
And he never tired of sharing his feelings on that particular subject. Hell, every time Rye spied the worn photo Max carried—of himself and Fi and Hatchet, taken the last time they’d all stood together on a midway—he’d ask, “You gonna do right by her today?”
The dick.
And all of Max’s excuses for his abandonment of her—her mother, his father, the lack of blood between them, the life that had been forced upon him—fell on deliberately deaf ears, something that had forced him to continually defend those excuses.
And eventually, examine them.
That introspection, coupled with the brutal lessons of war and combat—and the brotherhood forged on the battlefield, especially with the man he spoke to now, who had become as much family as anyone—had forced him to reevaluate most of the choices he’d made in his life.
And to realize how badly he’d messed up.
You abandoned me, Max. I was fifteen, and you were all I had, and you left.
Something he deeply, bitterly regretted; something for which he would never stop paying.
But there was no erasing the past. There was only moving forward.
“Fi’s a better person than me,” he said because it was true. “Always has been. All I had to do was mention the kid, and she was in.”
“You manipulated her.”
“I told her the truth. She could’ve said no.”
“Prick,” Rye repeated. “Did you tell her who’s after the kid?”
“I’ll tell her when I see her.”
A snort. “You said you’d never go back.”
“The show is the perfect cover. I have no choice.”
“There’s always a choice. But it’s about damn time you did the right thing.”
Max didn’t even know what the hell the right thing was. “You’re a sanctimonious dick.”
“Takes one to know one. Does anyone else know about Fi?”
Shame flushed Max’s skin, a hot wave that surprised him. “No. They’d have to dig pretty deep, and even then, I doubt it.”
“Your parents were hitched. There’s something somewhere.”
“No. They were never married. I found that out during my background check when I applied to Quantico.” Something he needed to tell Fi. Which would probably go the same way everything between them went—badly. “There’s nothing to connect us except the people who knew us as kids, and hunting them down would be damn near impossible. We’re safe enough.”
“Then why call me?”
Because he trusted Rye. Rye had grown up on the streets of LA; he’d been fighting since he could walk. He’d fought his way out of the barrio, out of the gangs and the foster care system; then he’d fought his way out of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Rye would protect Fi and Selena like they were his own; he would do whatever it took, without hesitation or mercy. Max had fought beside him; he understood precisely the value of Rye’s skill and training, and more, his instincts. Rye had been staying alive for a long time. He was an expert at adaptation, he was stubborn as hell, and he was far more intelligent than anyone ever realized—until it was too late.
“I need you to keep them safe,” Max replied finally. “I have to concentrate on finding a rat; I can’t afford to be worried about them. And if you’re with them, I won’t.” He paused, his eyes on the storm, which had begun to buffet the side of the car with strong, steady gusts of wind. Rain spattered against the roof. Selena watched him from the backseat, her gaze honed and intense. “You in?”
“Like Flynn. Where am I going?”