Ian started to say something, but Case put a hand out, stopping him. He looked Kent in the eyes. “Are you trying to get back in the Agency’s good graces?”
“I’m trying to stop a crazy woman from developing a drug that could be used against us,” Kent replied. “And you have to know that the Agency isn’t going to help you out of the kindness of their hearts. Every intelligence group in the world is looking for that drug and they won’t care how they get their hands on it. You need me. I can help you because if we don’t get the formula to that drug, guess who the Agency is going to turn to? Going to study?”
“Theo,” Ten said between clenched teeth. “They’ll try to use him to figure out what she did and reverse engineer the process. It’s why Santos is working with her. I’m sure she promised him a cut or that he could be the one to sell the formula for her. He always was a wily son of a bitch.”
“I’m not letting the Agency take my brother.” He would fight.
Kent looked him straight in the eyes. “Then let me be your Agency contact. I won’t inform them of the mission until we’re in the air and there’s nothing they can do to switch me out. If you take someone else, I can’t promise they’ll help you the way I will.”
“Why should we trust you?” Ian asked.
Case knew the answer. “Because he loves Mia, too.”
Kent’s eyes closed as though he couldn’t stand to look at him. “She’s a very lovable woman.” His eyes came open again and he stared at Case. “I know she doesn’t feel the same way about me. You don’t have anything to worry about. And it’s more than Mia. It’s about Ezra, too.”
His brother. Case understood that. And he couldn’t find the will to work up jealousy. Mia was his. All he could feel was some sympathy for Kent. He wouldn’t get the woman he wanted, but he could help save her. “You’re in. We fly out at six and we’re going to have to deal with one seriously freaked out billionaire.”
Ian pulled out his phone. “I’m going to call Alex and see if he and Eve will take the twins so Chelsea can work on this. I assume with Mr. White’s approval she can answer to me without being a traitor. As for the rest of it, this is your op, Case. I’ll follow your lead.”
Ian turned and started to dial.
It was his mission. He intended to make sure he got his girl and his brother back.
Mia wished she wasn’t in a bathrobe. Clothes. They were super helpful when one was kidnapped.
How long had it been? Hours at least. Maybe a full day since she’d clung to Case and prayed that this had all been a shitty dream.
Granted, though, she’d been drugged for a while so her sense of time could be fucked.
She had no idea what had been done to her while she was out. It made her feel ridiculously small.
Don’t think about it. Take stock of where you are.
She kept her eyes closed because she had no idea who was watching her. There was a hum all around her, a vibration beneath her body and a definite sense of motion.
“I know you’re awake. You might as well sit up. It’s almost time to land and this hunk of junk is going to descend pretty quickly. I’ve got a bag ready for you,” a voice said over the whine of the plane’s engine.
Mia opened her eyes and had to contain her shock.
Theo Taggart was sitting in front of her, his blue eyes staring down with absolutely no recognition in them at all. She gasped a little as she realized that wasn’t the only thing that had changed. He had a long, angry scar that ran across his face. It started right under his left eye and wove its way down to his jawline. It had to have happened sometime right after she’d seen him because it was already healed to a nasty pale pink. He held a hand out.
She took it, allowing him to help her up. Her mind was foggy, her stomach not exactly still.
The last thing she remembered was holding on to Case and then a man in a mask hit him and jabbed a needle into her arm and everything had gone dark.
“Where am I?” She shifted the robe so nothing was hanging out. It looked like someone had also covered her with a blanket. It draped across her lap, but while she’d been lying down it would have covered her body.
It was a stupid question because she was obviously in some kind of a cargo plane. She was sitting on one side and Theo on the other. As her eyesight came back into focus, she could see the metal all around her. It looked like they were in the back of the plane.
“You’re about to be in Sierra Leone,” he said over the hum of the engines.
“Are you going to give her a full report and maybe plans to the compound so she can escape?” Tony Santos strode over and slid his lean body into the seat beside Theo’s, his eyes finding Mia. “He got that scar the hard way. It was punishment for what he did to help you last time. You’ll find he’s been properly trained to obey during this op.”
Fucking Tony Santos. Oh, damn it to hell. Case was going to slap her ass silly for this.