“I’m staying for another hour. You and Lacey take a break while you can.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Chase muttered. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Lace, you want to go with me?”
She shook her head. “I’ll stay here.” Her gaze scanned the street.
“Suit yourself.” Chase hurried out the door and down the street.
“Lacey, is everything okay?”
“I keep waiting for Frank to show up.”
“He’d be a fool to push Adam and Brent. They would enjoy taking him down. Trust me. They aren’t going to let him anywhere near you.”
“Rowan.”
She glanced at Brent, felt her muscles tighten at his grim expression. Without taking her gaze from his, she murmured to Lacey, “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Rowan crossed to the table and sat in the chair he pulled out for her. “What’s wrong?”
“Adam decipered the rest of the code.”
“That’s good, right?” She thought Brent would be happy to know what the other half of that list said.
“It’s good Adam decoded the list. I want to know why Heather had a copy of a list of known international terrorists?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“International terrorists?” Rowan’s mouth gaped. “I don’t understand. I thought the list of terrorists was of the homegrown variety.”
Yeah, Brent had thought so, too. Turned out only half of the list was militia members. The other half was a group of international terrorists with a nasty reputation. Unfortunately, he and his operatives had run up against a couple of them in the last few years. “Think hard about anything Jay mentioned concerning his business associates.”
“He didn’t talk to me about his business.” She leaned closer and dropped her voice. “I tried not to spend any time in his company. Jay gave me the creeps.”
And he’d hurt Rowan. Brent hadn’t forgotten about her insinuation. He wished the man were still alive. He’d love to get his hands on the guy for what he’d done to Rowan and Heather, and maybe Alexa. “Did he or Heather mention his associates by name?”
She thought a moment. “Toby Minter and Nolan White. I don’t know anything about them except Jay was excited to work with them on a project, but I don’t know what the project was.”
More than likely, Zane had already run across the information online. Brent hadn’t had time to contact his friend this morning. “We’ll figure it out. In the meantime, I need to borrow your office again. Do you mind?” The calls he needed to make couldn’t be done in a public space.
“Of course not. It’s unlocked.” Rowan turned to Adam. “Do you need more coffee, Adam? A pastry, maybe?”
“I wouldn’t say no to either.” He gave her his lopsided smile.
“I’ll be right back.”
As she hurried to the coffee bar, Brent turned his gaze to Adam. “Be straight with me. How do you feel?”
“I’m fine,” his friend said, his voice a growl. “I don’t know what’s taking that doctor so long to sign off on my return to work.”
Brent weighed what he’d seen when Adam had first been rescued from the hands of a sadistic drug dealer against the operative’s current status. He had to admit, the man had made a remarkable recovery despite his outward appearance. Cuts and burns had covered Adam’s body as well as deep-tissue bruising and a dislocated joint or two. He still had some plastic surgery ahead of him. “Would you tell me if you weren’t fully healed?”
“No, but I’m ready to go into the field, Brent. I wouldn’t put my teammates at risk by going on a mission when I couldn’t hold my own.”
“You don’t have a team any more, Adam.” The men he’d trusted to have his back hadn’t. Instead, they’d been split apart by the jealousy and manipulation of one of their members. As a result, Brent had fired the one subversive and split up Adam’s remaining teammates. If these men couldn’t make it with their new teams, they would be fired as well. The jury was still out on them, but Brent wasn’t impressed with what he’d seen to date.
The Marine’s face darkened. “I know,” he murmured.
“If I need you for the mission to rescue Alexa, can you handle field work?” He held up his hand to stop Adam from answering. “Rowan is mine which makes Alexa mine. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Adam was silent a moment, then he slowly nodded. “I get it. You can trust me with both of their lives. I won’t let you down, Brent.”
Rowan’s footsteps approached. She set a mug of steaming coffee and a plate with two different pastries in front of Adam. “Here you go.” She laid her hand on the operative’s shoulder. “Thank you for looking after my employees, Adam. And don’t bother to tell me it’s your job. You aren’t treating it like a simple job and I appreciate your care for my people.”
“If it takes one more worry off your shoulders, I’m happy to do it,” Adam said simply. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around to protect your sister.”
Rowan’s eyes glistened. “Me, too.” She turned away to return to the coffee bar.
Brent wished he could take the away the pain. There was nothing he could do except be there for Rowan and Alexa. Somewhere in the past forty-eight hours, Rowan had slipped into his heart. She was an amazing woman. He meant what he’d told Adam. Rowan was his. If she didn’t kick him to the curb, he intended to keep her and Alexa.
He stood. “I’ll be back.” He walked to Rowan’s office and shut the door, trusting Adam to protect Rowan. Brent pulled out his phone and called Zane. “What do you have for me, Z?”
“Nothing good,” his tech guru said.
“Lot of that going around. Hit me.”
“Rumors abound on the Net about Maxwell dipping into the drug business.”
His eyebrows rose. “Drugs? We talking cocaine, heroin, pot?”
“All the above,
