“Becca—”
“Stop. Just stop. You don’t get to dictate what I do or don’t do.” She arched an eyebrow at Nick, and he got the message loud and clear. He’d lost any right he might’ve had to an opinion about her life. Rixey fought the urge to rub at the ache splintering the left side of his chest. “Charlie is my brother. If doing this will help bring him home alive, then that’s all I need to know.” She looked at Shane for guidance, and that absolutely slayed Nick. “What do you think?”
“I think Nick’s right about the risk,” he said, throwing Rixey a bone. “But recon didn’t tell us as much as we’d hoped, and this meeting could make the difference, depending on why he’s asking for it.”
Easy settled a hip against the edge of the desk. “Maybe he wants to make a trade? Or sell some information?”
“It’s like a damn multiple-choice quiz right now. I’ll pick D: all of the above.” Shaking his head, Marz leaned back in his chair.
“One way to find out, right? We call.” She surveyed the men, and Nick followed her lead. Maybe she didn’t know them well enough to see it, but to a man they wore a new respect for her in their gazes. As much as he hated the idea of hanging her out there as some kind of bait, he admired her courage and willingness to help. To be part of the team. Everyone nodded, including him. He could totally get behind making the call. “Okay, then. What time is it?” she asked.
“Six forty-two,” Marz said.
She nodded and released a long breath. “So, we call at seven o’clock like he asked and go from there.”
WELL, BECCA GOT what she wanted. Which was why she found herself standing alone in an open-air picnic pavilion on the edge of the Canton Waterfront Park three hours later.
A yuppie neighborhood with a party reputation, all of Canton was probably still hungover and in bed, which meant she was the only one in the park. Good for their daytime op, a little scary as she stood here now.
She wasn’t really alone, though. The team was stationed all around her. Miguel and Shane were hiding in plain sight. They were readying Miguel’s powerboat down at the dock, like they were heading out to fish on the beautiful spring Sunday morning. Miguel had actually been the one to suggest this location, reasoning he could drop them off by water, which the gang wouldn’t likely expect in case they were lying in wait. And, if the team could grab the guy, taking the boat out on the water would give them privacy to interrogate him. Nick, Beckett, Easy, and Marz had taken up hiding spots around the park. Even though she couldn’t see them, she trusted that they were there for her.
That knowledge didn’t keep her heart from pounding in her chest or her scalp from prickling, but it gave her the courage to stand and wait to meet the man who’d held a knife to her ribs and attempted to kidnap her.
The man who said he could tell her where Charlie was and what she had to do to get him back.
That had been enough for Becca. For the rest of the team, as well. Even Nick had begrudgingly admitted it was a critical lead, even if he hated the idea of her being out in the open by herself.
Nick. God, the story he’d told about her father. If she let herself think about it at all, nausea flooded her gut. Becca paced the length of the pavilion, twigs crunching beneath her sneakers. Part of her wanted to reject the idea that her father was anything but the hero she’d always believed. What they said he did made absolutely no sense. None of it squared with the man she’d known and loved her whole life.
Except . . . now that the logic of the team’s story had time to gel with what Charlie claimed and the reality of their situation, she was ashamed that she’d succumbed to a moment of knee-jerk defensiveness and made Nick question whether she believed in him. She’d just been so blindsided.
If only Nick had told her the truth sooner.