THE COUGAR'S BABY - 15

C H A P T E R F I F T E E N - - - D A N I E L L A

“This is taking too long,” Jerome’s voice growled, a threatening sound that didn’t make Dani even twitch a brow.

It had been a few days since her run-in with Shaun, and everyone—not only Shaun and his squad—were getting antsy. But Squad Six was certainly the one most vocal about it.

“That may be true, but this isn’t one of your little snatch-and-grab missions, Nicolas. I’m sorry that our due diligence is fucking with your plans, but we either do this right or we don’t do this at all. Either or, you being a nuisance does not make my team work any faster,” she snapped in response, her arms crossed on her chest as she stared at the tall lieutenant without a hitch of trepidation.

This was her ground. In the gray, sullen offices in one of The Firm’s best kept secrets, her team slaved away over every tiny bit of information, trying to make sense of what the Silk Slayers were up to and what their plans were moving forward. There were several operatives on the ground now, keeping their ear to the streets and unraveling tiny smidgens of data that seemed to make no sense on their own but overall created a complex picture.

And work like that could not be rushed, even if men with big guns and even bigger egos wanted to.

Shaun was at the door, leaning back against the wall with his usual amused smirk resting on his lips, the one he wore when he was trying to be both annoying as well as unnoticeable. At least that was Dani’s take on the situation. Jerome, however? He was irritated. And she couldn’t blame him.

She believed that same desire for results burned in Shaun three times as hot as it did in Jerome, seeing as her team had to keep tearing Shaun away from getting too involved in the investigation on account of Carter more often than they would have liked.

“Told you, Lieutenant,” Shaun said in a lazy drawl, his shoulders hunched as Dani shared a look with him.

You couldn’t have kept him out of my hair, could you? Not enough that I have to worry about how Roman’s getting on without me and with the nanny, and dealing with you, but now Jerome too? I can only deal with so much…

Her flustered sigh was real and she tapped one of the techs on the shoulder at the station closest to where she was standing. Sitting down, she pulled up surveillance videos they’d managed to capture a few days ago, showing movement in and out of a large storage facility, a logistics center by the name of Isabela Logistics Base. A pretentious name for a simple warehouse and truck depot, but Dani knew enough by now to be sure it was not simply that.

“We got this off of a drone we flew over the center when we got a tip that Isabela might be worth the look. You see those trucks moving in and out? We intercepted one of them and as far as we can tell, most of them are empty. Decoys, or just something to make it appear like normal operations are still present. It seems they all head out of Ilocos on several different paths, circle around over a period of a few days, change their plates, and come back just the same.”

“So it’s a front,” Jerome said, peeking over her shoulder.

Dani was intensely aware that Shaun had come to join him, his presence setting the air between them crackling with electricity. It was unnerving. Not only because of how intensely she felt it, but because of how greedily her body accepted it, as if drawn to him by a magnetic force beyond her comprehension.

“Seems like a likely conclusion.”

“For what?” Shaun asked.

“That’s what we don’t know yet,” Dani said, anticipating the frustrated groans she was to receive from the two men. “We’re working on it. Whatever it is, it’s using a whole lot of electricity. We’ve been surveying the grid and Haygrove’s electricity use is up four-hundred percent since about six months ago. Before that, it was a legitimate logistics center.

“My people tracked down a couple of former workers. They got pink slips one after another over a week and hefty severance packages. No one raised a fuss because they made off like bandits. Whoever’s running this wants to keep everyone quiet and out of the loop.”

“Who’d want to stir shit in Ilocos?” Shaun scoffed, straightening up. “Let alone why’d anyone want to come here to begin with?”

Dani chuckled, turning around in her seat as she shut off the video.

“That’s an easy enough question. For the same reasons that The Firm is here,” she said. And why I am here, she added under her breath. “It’s a wasteland. It’s an urban desert, a city that pretends to be alive but underneath it all is actually dead and buried. A ghost land. The place where you come when you don’t want anyone to know that you exist.”

Guess I had a flaw in that plan, she thought grimly.

Shaun’s eyes met hers and for a moment she saw something in them, maybe a sense of realization that she would have rather been spared. The last thing she needed was for him to start asking questions and figuring things out. She bit down on her lip, her mind racing to find a way to get them out of her hair and to get Shaun’s mind off of the very obvious carrot dangling in front of his face.

“Nicolas, I understand that you are frustrated. We all are. But what if I offer you something to do, something that might actually help?” Dani asked, grasping at straws but finding one of them surprisingly sturdy.

Jerome’s gaze was questioning and she’d expect nothing less from a man who’d managed to keep his squad intact for far more years than anyone else in The Firm. Shifter Squad Six had not lost a man since its formation, and though Dani figured it was a testament to the individual characters of the men he commanded, like Shaun, she was also certain that it had plenty to do with the lieutenant himself.

“I’m listening,” Jerome replied dubiously, straightening up.

“I have a number of operatives out there whose combat readiness I am not completely sure of. Shaun here can tell you that we might have sent out some when they were not yet ready for the burden they had to bear.”

She exchanged a look with Shaun and his expression became stony, showing her no emotion but revealing all of them with that action. He must have been more frustrated than all of them put together, especially with there being little movement on the front of figuring out where Carter had disappeared to.

“So I was thinking that perhaps you and your team could give them a quick rundown, make sure they’re prepared for the streets and for their faceless nemesis. If they’re not, either drill them or discard them. I can ask command for replacements. But I do not want to lose people.”

The more she spoke, the better the idea sounded to her. She was in desperate need of someone giving a once-over to her team, and Squad Six was one of the best, not to mention the only ones at her disposal. Dani would have to use her assets the best she could.

In the back of her mind, she was very much aware that she was not the most qualified nor the most seasoned lead Ace could have picked for this mission. Why he’d made that call still plagued her, along with the very real threat of babbling about Ro whenever Shaun was around, but neither of those things meant that she could get sloppy with her job at hand. For her own safety, as well as her baby’s and everyone else’s on the team, she would have to be sharp.

“Does that mean you as well, Miss Gutierrez?” Jerome asked, giving her a stern look.

Dani fought the desire to look at herself in much the same way he was. She was not in the best fighting form, that much was evident. While it might have looked simply like slacking off after leaving the strict fitness regimen forced on its agents by The Firm, Dani knew it was simply the aftereffects of the pregnancy combined with the lessened training. She could still kick the ass of most men who crossed her path, but she had a sinking feeling that the people working with Soyo were not most men.“Of course,” she replied flatly, the emotion drained out of her words.

“Well then. I accept. Get me a schedule; we’ll use one of the training halls in the basement.”

Jerome grinned, flicking a look at Shaun and then Dani. She couldn’t speak before Jerome had made up his mind and to Jerome’s credit, the tactic had been put to use so quickly that Dani had only recognized it happening when it was too late.

“As for you, I think you’ll be best left in Shaun’s capable hands,” Jerome said, clapping Shaun on the shoulder. “Don’t go easy on her, huh? After all, we all depend on her being at the top of her game. Nothing a Marine likes better than a few cuts and bruises, right?”The twinkle in Jerome’s eyes was only outshined by the equal parts trepidation and excitement in Dani’s and Shaun’s. Her breath caught and her skin got clammy. Jerome, the sly… well, not fox, but bear, had caught both of them in a trap and he’d done it so smoothly that Dani had to wonder whether the idea of having her crew trained by Squad Six had been hers at all or if Jerome had been conditioning her for it.

Spirits above, can I not catch a break?

“Hoo-ah,” Dani muttered, tossing Jerome a scorching look that the lieutenant shrugged off smoothly.

“Aye, lieutenant. I’ll take off the kid gloves,” Shaun promised as he and Jerome made their goodbyes, stalking out of the crowded recon offices like two men who’d simultaneously won and lost a battle.

Dani’s eyes tracked them as they went and she caught the moment when Shaun looked over his shoulder, straight at her. He threw her a wink and she wondered if she was supposed to be afraid. Probably. To the best of her knowledge, the man was a menace, a danger to all around him.

So why was it that she felt herself getting wet with excitement?

You are so screwed, Dani. And not in the good way.