Shane leaned back and chuckled right into the rain. “Good? It’s a fucking miracle. Thank God.”
Jory took them in. To see them. Three men, tough as steel, standing in the rain and welcoming him home. Identical gray eyes, rock-solid bodies, and pure emotion cutting lines in their faces.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He’d hurt them by disappearing, even though he hadn’t had a choice.
“Shut up.” Shane punched his arm as if he couldn’t help touching again. He’d kept his brown hair shaggy to his collar as a fuck you to their military upbringing, and he had to shove it out of his face in the wind. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Was shot, was in a coma, and am now here.” He could barely speak in complete sentences. They were alive… and together. Finally.
Matt nodded. “We know. Saw the tapes. Do you know who shot you?”
“No.” It didn’t surprise Jory that his brothers had chased down what had happened to him. “Any ideas?”
“A woman is all we know,” Matt growled.
Jory bit back a wince. The only woman in his life was Dr. Madison, the closest thing he had to a mother. Even though she didn’t consider him human, the thought that she’d really try to kill him spiraled nausea into his stomach. “Madison shot me?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Matt ran a hand through his black hair, his gaze roaming over Jory’s shoulder. “Speaking of women, who is that? I can hear her heart beating hard enough she sounds like she’s about to have a coronary.”
Jory swallowed over the lump in his throat as he turned to view Piper. She stood on the porch, her green eyes wide, her hands clutching the blanket like a lifeline. “That’s a long story.”
“Then I suggest you tell it,” Matt said, keeping his gaze on Piper.
Jory grinned, joy all but whipping into him. Two years apart, and Matt slid right back into giving orders. “Fine, but she decides her next move. I won’t have you kidnapping her if she wants to go back.”
Nate frowned, his rugged jaw square and stubborn. “Back where?”
Man, this was going to be tough.
A vibration cut through the air. Low and… heavy. An attack helicopter armed with missiles. Jory stilled and glanced up. “Did you bring reinforcements?”
“No.” Matt reached for a gun in his waistband and shoved a Glock into Jory’s hand. “Do you sense somebody?”
While his brothers all had enhanced senses and gifts, he was the only one to detect vibrations and changes in cosmic patterns. “Yes.” The air moved as if an attack helicopter flew low.
He turned to view Piper. Heat washed down his torso, and blood rushed through his head, echoing in his ears. If they sent in missiles, she’d die. “I’ll get the girl. Load up.”
Piper tried to tuck the blanket more securely into her breasts, keeping them covered. Chills swept up her bare feet against the rough planks. So Jory had gotten dressed and called for help? The reunion with his brothers—and there was no question they were brothers—had spiked tears in her eyes and pummeled her abdomen with emotion.
So he had been telling the truth.
The men were huge and cut muscular hard. Dangerous men, without question. Yet a sweetness lived in the moment as they’d reconnected. Family. Definitely family. One that wasn’t afraid to let tears show.
The reunion nearly broke her heart. How long had they been apart?
Why had her father lied about Jory’s family? More important, what else had her father lied about? A hollowness echoed through her abdomen.
Four pairs of identical gunmetal gray eyes focused on her, yanking her out of her thoughts. An absolute pinning focus. Her knees trembled. She couldn’t move.
She gulped air. Who the hell were they? Really?
Running seemed like a good idea, yet totally absurd. Her mind clicked scenarios and reality into statistical analysis. Shoeless and wearing a blanket, she wouldn’t make it three yards—and she’d probably lose the blanket.
So she lifted her chin and met Jory’s gaze directly. He’d been careful with her, and he’d saved her from drowning. If she had an ally in the gray-eyed group, he’d be it.
He glanced up, said something to the others, and then all hell broke loose.
A weird pattering sound filled the morning, while men dropped from the skies on ropes. Jory raced across the distance in a zigzag pattern. She held out a hand to stop him, her mind fuzzing.
He reached her, yanked her up, and smacked her in a chest hard enough to knock the wind out of her. Without missing a stride, he turned in one smooth motion before she could utter a word. She grabbed on to his shirt for balance and screamed. He ducked his head over her to zigzag back toward the helicopter. Mud popped up next to them, and she gasped. Her mind swirled.
They were being shot at.
Jory’s brothers’ helicopter whirred into action, and his family leaned out, all shooting at the men in black who’d dropped from the sky.
One of the brothers jerked back, growled, and kept fighting.
How badly was he shot?
Jory bent low over her, protecting her. Panic heated up her lungs, all reality faded, and she started to struggle.
She had to get out of there. Away from the shooting and blood.
They reached the helicopter, and her fists pounded into his chest. A man shouted as he ran around the cabin, and she turned to stare.
Her father. She gasped. He faltered and stopped firing, his black eyes blazing. “Your brother gave you up, Matt. Brought you right to me.” His voice rose like power over the fight and through the rain.
Jory faltered. “Asshole.”
“Let me go.” Piper shoved at Jory’s chin, squirming to keep him from throwing her in the copter. She didn’t know him—not really. Where were they going? What about her mother? Piper couldn’t just leave.
“Let Piper go. Now.” The commander braced his legs as if unafraid of any bullet.
“No.” Jory used his body as a shield around her, and she tried not to find comfort in his protection. This was over the top.
The commander slid dark glasses off his eyes, his gaze sliding to the front of the craft. “Matthew. So good to see you again. Come home, boy.”
Jory’s black-haired brother leaned out the pilot’s window, his gun out. “I have a new home, asshole. Leave us alone, or I’ll take you out.” He ducked back as bullets pinged into the side of the copter. “Everyone load up,” he ordered, returning fire.
He sounded a lot like Jory, in control and threatening.
The commander ducked to the side of the cabin and out of the open.
Jory bent low, holding her against the metal as his brothers fired around them, providing cover. “One chance to come with us. I won’t force you.”
She shook her head, surprised to find him blurry through tears. Those eyes. She’d never forget those eyes. “I can’t leave my mom.”
Jory’s jaw tightened. He faltered, and an odd vulnerability glowed in his eyes to be quickly snuffed out. “I never had a mom, but if I had one, I wouldn’t leave her.” He brushed a kiss across Piper’s forehead as the firefight waged on around them. “Okay. Then fight me, and make it look good.”
What the hell did he think she’d been doing? But her mind swirled that he thought her father needed to see her fight. That her father wouldn’t trust her otherwise. Opening her mouth, she screamed and punched with every ounce of fear consuming her.
Jory’s grip faltered. “More,” he hissed. She kicked and screamed and fought, honestly with everything she had.
“Sorry about this, Pipe.” Dropping her, Jory grabbed his eye as if she’d punched him, and yet held on to the blanket. “Run.”
She screeched. The blanket shredded away as he jumped into the helicopter. It rose into the air, the men firing all around. Fury heating her ears, she turned and ran full bore for her father by the cabin door. Buck-assed naked.
The gunfire increased, and the soldiers ignored her barefoot dash through mud and weeds to reach the door.
/>
Somehow, she knew Jory wouldn’t let her get shot. She leaped into the cabin and whirled around to see him watching her, his gun covering her. He’d made sure she got safely inside.
She panted out air, and her chest hitched. The oddest part of her wanted to change her mind and go with him.
Then, with a quick nod, he pointed his weapon toward the forest as the helicopter continued to rise. Even as the storm pummeled him, he fired toward the forest, his gaze remaining on her. She watched him until he disappeared into the clouds, her body trembling with a shocking sense of loss.
Heart pounding, she leaped inside and went straight for her clothes at the fire. Jerking them on with shaking fingers, she ducked against the sofa until the firing stopped. She slowly lifted her head.
Silence.
Drawing in air, she crept toward the door and glanced outside. The commander was speaking into a radio. “They’re up and out of here. If you can’t bring them down peacefully, blow them out of the air. I want proof of life… or proof of death.”
Piper opened the door, her eyes wide. “No,” she whispered.
His black eyes narrowed. “You need to be debriefed.”
CHAPTER
12
JORY FINISHED TYING a bandage around Matt’s upper arm. “Went right through,” he said, patting tape into place. The smell of mildew and old cigarettes filtered around and made him need to sneeze.
Yet being with his brothers, finally, felt like home. “I didn’t bring the commander to you.” They had to believe him. No matter what, he’d never give up his brothers.
“We know.” Matt kept his gray gaze on him while sitting on a ragtag orange bedspread in a hotel in the middle of nowhere. Nate and Shane nodded.
“Duh,” Shane muttered and slapped his back in a show of support.
Jory threw him a glare in an attempt to hide the relief coursing through him. His brothers believed in him. How could he forget that, even for a moment?
No expression softened Matt’s hard face, but emotion shone hard and bright in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Jor.”
Jory blinked. “Getting caught was my fault, Mattie. Not yours.” For as long as Jory could remember, Matt had taken responsibility for them all. Not knowing where Jory had been for two years would’ve torn him apart. “I’m sorry.”
Shane tossed him a beer while Nate smoothly slid needle and thread through Shane’s forearm to seal a hole. “Enough apologies. We’re here, we’re alive, and we just crashed a helicopter into a Utah forest.” He grinned. “Let the commander go through that wreckage.”
Nate snorted.
Jory rubbed his aching neck, almost too full to speak. God, he’d missed them. “That was quite the plan you had.” They’d landed the copter and immediately jumped into an SUV hidden in the trees before blowing the Blackhawk to pieces while the other helicopters chased their asses in the clouds. “How did you put it together so quickly?”
Nate took a long swallow of beer. “We called in a couple of favors. It worked.”
Jory opened his beer and studied his brothers. Being away from them, not sure if they lived, had been like a fist continually gripping his heart. Now, finally, he could breathe.
His brothers were all about six-five, and he had an inch on them. One he’d gloated over so long ago. In the last two years, his brothers had hardened even more, which he wouldn’t have thought possible. But new lines fanned out from Matt’s eyes. Laugh lines. Shane seemed relaxed… for Shane. He sat easily, leaning against an ugly yellow chair, his face more angular than Matt’s but his eyes just as fierce. And Nate. The worried brother, the furious protector… calmness surrounded him. Even on high alert, he owned focus.
“What the hell did I miss?” Jory asked before tipping back his head and letting the cool brew slide down.
Shane shrugged. “I recaptured my wife.”
Jory grinned. He’d never met Josie, but he’d seen pictures. The woman looked like Tinker Bell with an attitude. “Was she willing?”
“Eventually,” Shane said.
Good. That was good. Jory nodded. Shane had been miserable when he’d left Josie, and seeing him happy was the best thing that could’ve happened for Jory. No more anger for his big brother.
Nate smiled. “I hunted Audrey down, and now she’s pregnant.”
Jory nodded and scrutinized his brother. Nate seemed… happy. “Yeah, I heard. Congrats to you both.” Sweet Audrey was somehow Dr. Madison’s daughter, and they couldn’t be more different.
He’d missed a lot, and he wished he could’ve been there to help his brothers. But the idea that they’d actually found happiness, that they’d move on once he died, settled an ache in his chest. This was good.
He turned toward Matt, wondering what Matt thought of having women in the family.
Matt finished his beer. “I fell in love with one of the commander’s doctors, and now she’s ready to take the chips out of our spines the second we force them off-line.”
Jory stilled. He stopped his beer halfway to his mouth while studying his oldest brother. No tell. Then he looked toward Nate and then Shane. No amusement. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” Matt reached for another beer.
Nate shifted a knife against his calf. “Laney Lou is a sweetheart. You’ll like her, Jory.”
Jory scratched his chin. Nate was the most cynical person ever born, so if he liked the woman, she must be amazing. Still. One of the commander’s doctors? “Congrats?”
“Thanks.” Matt tossed him another beer. “You’ll meet her when we get picked up tonight.”
Now he really wanted to meet the woman who’d captured Matt’s heart. But first, they had another mission to take. Jory took a deep breath. “We can’t leave.”
Nate leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “We have the computer program, and now that your brain is back with us, you can figure out how to deactivate the chips.”
Jory nodded, his chest all but bursting. Even though they had the program, they didn’t have the frequency or the codes. The damn fucking codes that somehow changed easily in the right program. “That’s exactly what I’ll do.”
He’d watched Piper on the computer, but too much needed to come together in the time frame they had left. There just wasn’t enough time left. He’d tell them about his chip after he rendered theirs useless, which was already a nearly impossible task. Just trying to remove a chip might detonate the damn thing, even with the right codes put into the right program. “But first, we have an extraction.”
Matt frowned. “The woman? You released her.”
Jory nearly groaned as the image of Piper running nude toward the cabin zipped through his brain. The woman had an amazing ass. Full and ripe… just his type. Then he took a drink as reality smacked him. A deep breath. His gut swirled at the thought of Chance and the other two boys still under the commander’s thumb. At the boy who’d been lost.
Matt leaned forward. “Spit it out.”
“There are more kids,” Jory said, his voice going hoarse.
Tension slammed through the room. Matt went stone still, Shane leaped to his feet, and Nate put his back to the door.
“You sure?” Matt’s voice dropped to the dark tone of death.
“Yes.” Jory shoved a rough hand through his now dry hair. “Met one named Chance. Gray eyes—definitely one of us. Saw his bone structure and caught his scent.”
Nate exhaled slowly, through his nose. “How many?”
“Three, counting Chance. Now.” Jory tried to force emotion into a box. “We have three more brothers.”
“Three now?” Nate asked softly.
Jory nodded, rage nearly boiling his blood. “There were four. Lost one a month ago in the field—he was eleven.”
The sound Matt made could only be termed a tenor of pain.
“Fuck.” Shane threw his bottle across the room to smash into the bathroom wall. “Fucking fucktard of a bastard fucktard dickhead commander. I’ll take his balls and make him eat
them before I rip off his fucking head.”
Ah. There was that anger.
Matt paled and glanced down at his hands, failure curling his lip.
Nate, always the balancing act to Matt’s guilt, kept his gaze on Matt, his back ramrod straight. “We didn’t know, and now we do.”
Matt rubbed his chest.
“Mattie?” Jory set down his beer, his voice softening. “There was no way for us to know. The kid—he reminded me of you. Badass attitude and total dedication to the other two kids.”
Matt’s head lifted, his eyes going dark. “He lost a brother. God.” Agony exhaled with his breath. “Is he all right?”
“No.” Jory gave the truth. “He’s fucking tortured, and he’s worried about the other two. He’s definitely hiding something, and he may be working wholeheartedly with the commander, or he may be getting ready to make a move for freedom. I’m not sure.”
“Either path will get them killed,” Nate murmured.
Matt stood. He exhaled slowly, his shoulders going back. “No. Nate, cancel our pickup. Shane, clean up the fucking beer bottle. And Jory? Sit the hell down and tell us everything about the organization, the two locations, and the woman.”
Better get this out of the way now. Jory cleared his throat. “She’s the commander’s daughter.”
Shane stopped in picking up a piece of glass to glance up and over his shoulder. His eyes widened. “Have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind?” He straightened.
“No.” Although he had been shot in the chest and lay in a coma for two years. “I don’t think so.”
Nate ground a fist into one eye. “You’re sure?”
“Yep. They both acknowledged the paternity, and I can see the resemblance beneath the skin.” Jory reached down for a shard of glass and straightened up.
“And we let her get away, why?” Matt stood, nearly nose to nose with Jory.
Jory held his ground. “She’s innocent. Last time I checked, we didn’t hurt innocents.”
“The commander’s daughter is not innocent,” Matt ground out, his eyebrows drawing down hard.
Jory kept his voice mild and his body relaxed. He let the truth in. Piper was innocent, and she wouldn’t be harmed. “With that reasoning, Nate’s Audrey is bad because Dr. Madison, her mother, is a psychopathic, sadistic bitch?”