“That’s none of your business,” she replied tartly. “My personal affairs are no one’s—”
“Oh, come on, Mom,” Jameson interrupted as his left hand circled her wrist. “We’re all family here, TEAM family. Surely—”
“Stop calling me Mom!” She jerked out from under his touch. “You’re not my family, Junior Agent Tenney. None of you are!”
“Excuse me?” Mark’s head canted nearly to his shoulder at that vehemently stated demand. “You found Libby for me after those Russian’s kidnapped her and buried her alive, didn’t you? You tracked her to the roadside construction site where they’d left her trapped inside a stack of concrete planters. Those were nothing but coffins, Mom. It was fall in Wisconsin. It was cold. She would’ve died of hypothermia if you hadn’t helped me find her. I wouldn’t have found her by myself. You saved my Libby’s life.”
Alex kept his mouth sealed.
“And who picked up a weapon the day Interpol Director Peters came to kill me, David, Harley, and Mark during that Black Dragon Syndicate op?” Zack asked, his big hands splayed on the tabletop in front of him, across from her. “If you’re not our overprotective Mom, who is?”
“But I—”
“But you helped me get to Izza and my unborn baby girl in time, Mom,” Connor interrupted quietly. As usual, Izza was sitting beside him, her brown eyes big and shining with tears. His hand fell automatically over his diminutive wife’s shoulder. “Without your help, those bastards would’ve beaten Izza to death, and you know it.” Swallowing so hard Alex heard it, he pulled Izza under his arm. “We would’ve lost our sweet little Jamie that day, and I’d be a fuckin’ mess.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Yeah, but you and Ember spotted our SOS out in the Utah desert where the cartel dumped us,” Izza added. “You stared at satellite feeds for days looking for us, Mom. I know you did.”
Before Mother could growl again, Jameson told her, “You helped Eric, Hunter, and Adam locate Maddie and me after that shoot-out with Pops Delaney. He would’ve killed us, Mom.”
She shot him a glare. The cords in her neck turned stiff and hard, but at last, she was fighting tears.
“And you helped Jameson, Harley, and Eric follow me to Boston when I went there to kill Delaney’s daughter,” Maddie piped up from across the table where she sat beside Mark. “I made a mistake that day, but you made sure I didn’t get myself killed. Thank you, Mom.”
“You helped me get China out of Wyoming,” Maverick murmured darkly from the other side of Harley. “I thought she was dead when I finally extracted her and Kiri from that hellhole her sister had them in. I thought I’d lost her, but you sent Gabe and Taylor, that medical helo, and…” His voice ground to a full stop as he swiped a hand over his face. “Did you know she stopped breathing on that Wyoming hillside that night, Mom? Without you, I’d be dead now. Because it was you who helped save the woman who saved my gawddamned, worthless life!”
Alex opened his mouth to tell Maverick he was anything but worthless, but Adam spoke first. “You waltzed into Paul Reagan’s mansion to find Shannon for me, to make sure she was doing okay, remember? He had her and Squeaks. He was blackmailing her, using her baby boy against her to keep her in line.” Adam’s eyes glittered with unshed emotion. “Squeaks was premature. He needed his mother. But Paul Reagan was killing her, Mom. Her own son of a bitchin’ father kept that sweet little guy from his mother, wouldn’t let Shannon see him, wouldn’t even let her hold him unless she did what she was told. He wanted her to run his freakin’ empire, when all she wanted was her son back. I’m with Maverick. Without you, I’d already be dead, because…” He lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “I can’t live without my wife and son, Mom. Just. Can’t.”
Before Mother could reply, Taylor added quietly, “You helped Harley and Gabe find me after I’d been shot, before I knew who I really was. Before I met my people and the woman I married, the ones who truly love me.”
Alex swallowed hard. That had been an excruciatingly difficult time in Taylor’s life. It wasn’t until he’d found his lost American Indian heritage that he’d finally become part of The TEAM.
“You helped Zack and Mark find me before that homeless nut job, Miriam, stabbed me again,” Harley said quietly. “Remember? She’d already stabbed me once. I was bleeding out. Her knife was still stuck in my ribs. I was out of my head and dying.” Unabashedly, he ran a hand over his watery eyes. “You saved my life that night, Mom. Miriam stabbed Mark, too. You saved his life, too.”
“You did,” Mark said quietly.
“You found my finger,” Beau added, his voice no more than a whisper. The little finger on his left hand was once again attached and functional. Psycho killer, Catalina Montego, had drugged Beau, then hacked his finger off with a gardener’s branch clippers, in her effort to terrorize Alex and The TEAM.
“And I know you tracked down everything you could find about that failed mission overseas. You hacked the government’s geo-satellites, I know you did. You broke the law to prove I didn’t kill my men. You put yourself at risk to prove I was
