Her Dirty Archeologists by Mika Lane

Chapter 26

JONAS KELLER

“You should have let me take that little fucker the first time I mentioned it.”

Penn was bouncing in his shoes, ready to kill someone. But Drake had managed to calm him, at least for the time being. He sure as hell wasn’t about to listen to me.

I didn’t blame him for his testosterone overload. I was pretty fucking pissed, myself. All I could say was that our plan had better work. We were using our lovely girl Fleur as bait, for Christ’s sake.

Which I was not at all convinced was a good idea. In fact I thought it was a pretty fucking risky one.

But the options were few if we wanted to trip up our confirmed nemesis, Brad.

Not that it would be hard to trip him up.

The man might have been duplicitous but that didn’t mean he was smart.

And it looked like the trap we’d set for him was one he was about to walk right into.

I peered around the corner of the mess tent from where the guys and I were hiding in the shadows, to where Fleur was sitting on full display, like a shiny lure on the end of a fishing line. As far as I was concerned, she should have just had a sign over her head reading come and get me.

She was doing her best to appear calm and collected, pretending to read a book, but by now I knew her well enough to realize she was anything but.

Especially since every now and then she would, without moving her head, shift her gaze around to see if there was anything or anyone coming at her.

Couldn’t blame her, since we knew someone was coming after her, not to mention the site’s artifacts.

Of course, the dig’s findings were of little concern when our girl was putting her well-being on the line.

I forced myself to remember to breathe, that’s how tightly wound I was. All I could think was that if anybody were to lay a finger on her, they’d be lucky they didn’t end up six feet under. And that it would be a race between my brother and me to see who could get to them first.

Drake, Penn, and I were ready. And, Drake had his gun loaded.

Regardless of our planning, there were still a myriad of things that could go wrong, and because of that, I wasn’t completely comfortable having Fleur front and center. But if she weren’t the sitting duck Brad’s contacts had been told to expect, no part of our plan would ever work.

We’d just be back at square one.

What had incensed me more than anything—even more than having our artifacts or tools stolen—was Brad’s cavalier attitude about Fleur, and how he’d told his lackeys to just take her away, whatever the fuck that meant.

If there were any one reason to pound his skull in, I’d say this was the best.

From our hiding spot in the dark, I glanced over to Brad’s camp. If my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me, he was hanging with a couple of the all-night card players, but continually craning his neck in our direction to see Fleur waiting like a sitting duck.

I whipped in the direction of the pitch-black night, distracted by a small sound coming from well beyond the reach of the light Fleur was pretending to read under.

And it was clear she’d heard it, too, because, while she didn’t look up from the pages of her book, she stiffened. Someone who didn’t know her might not realize it, but to me, her body was coiled to the point of being painful.

The sound got closer, and then there were quiet voices near our pit.

Just as we’d planned, Fleur called out into the darkness. “Hello? Is someone out there?”

The noise stopped for a few seconds, then continued.

Whoever the intruders were, they didn’t answer, knowing she’d have to venture into the darkness to see who it was and what they were doing.

She spoke a little louder the second time. “I said, who’s out there? You shouldn’t be here. I’m going to call the authorities.”

Still nothing.

Little did they know, the authorities were already on their way.

“I’m warning you, I… I have a weapon,” she lied as she inched into the darkness.

I’d never felt my body so wound with tension. My girl—I mean, our girl—was putting her life on the line for the sake of our work.

I was blown away by her courage. I’m not sure I would so willingly walk into such a trap, even if I knew I had the backup of three big, pissed-off guys like us, as well as the authorities drawing near.

My fears became a reality when I heard Fleur scream. But seconds later, as if on cue, floodlights turned our camp into broad daylight as the local gendarmerie jumped into action, guns drawn, hollering in a local dialect I couldn’t understand.

With the area lit up, I watched Fleur turn to one of the guys. He’d made the fatal mistake of getting too close to her, which earned him a kick him in the balls with her heavy boot. Grunting, he fell forward. She turned to the other guy, who started running.

Right into the arms of a cop.

The would-be thieves and kidnappers, admitting defeat, threw their arms into the air, yelling and pointing in the direction of the neighboring camp. I turned and saw Brad watching the whole scene with his mouth hanging open. And before the fool knew what was happening, Drake was behind him, grabbing him in a chokehold.

* * *

Not being much of a morning person, I usually missed sunrise. But because the local cops had just carted off Brad and his accomplices, I was wide awake for this one.

While the morning was still cool from the desert night temperatures, the warm sun coming up over the sandy horizon was a peaceful contrast to the night before of danger, intrigue, and even betrayal.

As we’d suspected—like I said, Brad wasn’t too bright—he’d hired some local guys to take the attention off him when he was the looter all along. The leader of his dig, also his boss, went through his stuff and found not only what he’d stolen from us, but also things he’d stolen from his own camp. And he’d been discovered just in time. Brad was just days away from leaving and dumping his loot on the black market to make his fortune. Neither he, nor the items he’d stolen, would have ever been seen again.

What if we hadn’t caught him? What if Fleur hadn’t lucked out and overheard his plans? Our artifacts might have been gone, but what would have happened to our girl?

I didn’t even want to think about it.

I felt for the guys Brad had hired. They were no masterminds. They were just trying to make a little extra money to feed their families. The real criminals in all this were the Brads of the world and the greedy fuckers who thought it was okay to purchase and own stolen artifacts, who thought it okay to build personal collections of things that really ought to be enjoyed by everyone.

“I say we don’t work today,” Drake said, stretching and yawning.

“Cheers to that,” Penn agreed.

Fleur, who was more alert than any of us, yet who’d actually been awake the longest, put her hands on her hips. “I have an idea,” she teased.

Fuck, I hoped it was the same thing I was thinking.

“Meet you guys in my tent?” she said, sashaying in the direction of her little ‘love shack,’ as my brother called it.

“Be there in a minute,” Penn called after her, looking happy as a pig in shit. “Goddamn she’s cute.”

“What are we gonna do about it?” Drake asked.

Penn shrugged. “We’ll all date her.”

Drake looked at him like he was crazy, but most likely hoped he wasn’t.

“Jonas and I have shared a woman before. It was hot as shit.”

“Penn, that was a little different. I mean, she was nice and all, but what we have with Fleur is something… special.”

Shit, even calling it special seemed to diminish it.

“Well, we’ve told her we liked her. Now it’s time to have a more pointed discussion,” Drake said.

He was right. But there were more fun things to attend to, first.

* * *