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  Or maybe they had bombs strapped to themselves.

  Don’t be ridiculous, Athena, she scolded herself. What good would blowing up themselves and a clothing boutique do?

  “Take the hard drive while I search the filing cabinet.”

  She blinked rapidly. Not her hard drive. Did these people realize how impossible it was to keep a business’s affairs in order if she lost all her files? She wanted to scream but giving away her position wasn’t an option. As it was, she was shocked they couldn’t hear her heart pounding or her breathing so hard.

  “Wait. Lemme check something.”

  The closet door broke off the hinges, and she barely got her hands up to keep the wood splinters from coming back on her. A scream ripped from her throat as she stared up into a set of very dark, cruel eyes.

  * * * * *

  “Jesus.” Dylan’s muttered blasphemy didn’t begin to encompass what he was seeing. A woman, all wild curls and big eyes staring up at him, a scream breaking from her plump lips.

  “Fuck, we got one.” Dylan reached into the closet.

  “Get her outta there,” Ben demanded.

  Outside the boutique, it had been established that Dylan was the man who could hack the security system the quickest. And that he would go after the electronics and files while the others searched the place. The op was to uncover anything that could lead to tracking down a terrorist. But he never thought Knight Ops would possibly walk into the boutique and find one waiting to be captured.

  Or that she’d be staring up at him with big dark eyes.

  “Out.” His voice was rough, and at first she didn’t move. “I said out.”

  She scrambled forward, hands hitting the floor. She pushed to her knees and then a stand, swaying on one high heel because the other seemed to have fallen off inside the closet.

  Dylan glanced around. “Sit.” He pointed to the office chair, and she limped with as much dignity as a woman on one high heel could to sit down. She looked as frightened as a rabbit—but he had a feeling if she opened her mouth, she’d have a big bite.

  Ben leaned over the desk, and the woman’s eyes flew wider, if such a thing was possible. She also raised her chin a notch. Damn, the girl had spirit.

  “Who are you?” Ben demanded.

  “Athena Mohamed, the owner of this boutique.”

  Dylan swallowed his surprise at her sultry voice. By her exotic looks, he’d expected an accent, but she spoke in a very clear Southern Louisiana drawl, not unlike his maman or sisters.

  “What were you doing here after hours?” Ben asked.

  A crinkle appeared between her brows before she swept her gaze over her desk as if that much was obvious. “Going over the day’s finances and purchase orders. Is that a crime now? Who are you, anyway? I’m going to call the police.”

  Ben gave a short laugh. “Honey, they won’t come. This is above their pay scale. Now, tell me right now about what is really going on behind these sparkly gowns and tuxedos?”

  “G-going on? I sell them, and right now is my busiest season, as you can guess!”

  Damn, there it was again—that sass. Dylan found himself staring at Athena. Hell, that name fit her like a handmade gown.

  He snapped himself out of it and stepped up to the desk. “Hand over the keys to anything that has a lock. Including the safe.”

  Her face turned pink and then red. “If you’re going to rob me, then you’d be better off taking the jewelry case. It’s worth more than what’s inside the safe.”

  Dylan arched a brow. “We’re not here to rob you, lady, but your operations have alerted Homeland Security and now you’re under investigation.”

  Her jaw dropped and all the color drained from her pretty face. “Homeland Security? What for? I haven’t done anything wrong! I only sell dresses.”

  “Sure, honey.” Ben’s sarcastic muttering had Dylan wondering if his brother was seeing something that Dylan was missing. What if this woman was really just a shop owner caught in the intrigue?

  Now wasn’t the time to let a pretty face cloud his judgment.

  “Hand over the keys.” Dylan held out a hand and she fumbled in the desk drawer, coming out with a ring of several keys. He looked at them.

  “If you think I’m going to instruct you on which key fits which lock, you’re wrong.”

  The corner of his lips tipped up. “I can figure it out for myself.” He ran through several keys and selected one, holding it up. Then he dropped to one knee and unlocked the bottom desk drawer. He’d been on enough missions for OFFSUS that by now he should expect anything to be in that drawer. But what she was actually keeping under lock and key stunned him.

  A single pair of shoes glimmering with gems. If they were real, they’d be worth millions.

  Or maybe more if they were currency for the terrorist cell.

  He’d heard of things like this before. Large sums of money changing hands was easily tracked and authorities tipped off. But a person could find a private buyer for say, a pair of bejeweled shoes, and get what he—or she—wanted out of them.

  Dylan hooked his fingers into the dainty straps and pulled out the shoes. He set them on the desktop with a hard clank and the woman flinched.

  “What do you think you’re going to find here? That’s just a pair of heels I’ve been working on for a client.”

  Dylan grunted. “These are now evidence. Now tell me the combination for the safe.”

  She looked about to puke or shoot him with laser beams from her beautiful chocolate brown eyes. When she didn’t answer, he braced a hand on the desk and leaned over her.

  “The combination.” His tone brooked no argument and she spouted the numbers.

  His brain locked them in and he circled the desk to the safe while Ben pulled box after box out of the closet. It was so chockful that Dylan wondered how the woman had even squeezed herself around them to hide.

  He spun the dial left, right, left and the door flipped open. Inside was a flat bank deposit pouch, empty or nearly empty by the looks of it. And a velvet ring box.

  “Don’t take that, please.” The woman’s whisper raised the hair on the back of his neck, and he had no damn clue why that would happen. Hell, he didn’t even react after hearing a rifle being cocked behind him, but one whisper had him edgy.

  He reached into the safe and withdrew the box.

  Ben had stopped removing the cases of files and looked on.

  Dylan cracked open the lid, expecting to find something to incriminate this woman as a terrorist on US soil, but what he was looking at were two simple wedding bands made of gold.

  He plucked them from the case and held one up, using a pen light to examine it for microphones, microchips or anything else that would give a clue as to why the ring was so precious it had to be protected by a steel safe.

  His light flashed over an inscription. Ou se flè mwen ki fleri nan kè mwen.

  “You are the flowers that bloom in my heart.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Did you believe a Louisiana boy can’t read the Creole, Ms. Mohamed?” The other ring had no inscription.

  Ben grunted. “Take the ring and get the hard drive. As for the woman…” His brother turned to her, and she winced, true fear crossing her face. Dylan stared at her closer. She hadn’t shown anything but defiance when he spoke to her but she feared Ben? Dylan didn’t know whether to be annoyed or flattered.

  He returned the rings to the case and pocketed it.

  Ben went to the door and signaled to whoever was there to come inside. Chaz and Roades entered, and the woman pressed herself all the way back against her seat, hands tense on the arms as the room crowded with more big strangers.

  Dylan moved to stand by the desk as his brothers began carrying out the boxes. When the guys had them all removed, Ben turned to the woman. He stared at her for a long minute. Judging by the way her curls jiggled around her face, she was trembling.

  “Should I put her in the vehicle?” Dylan asked.
/>   She jerked.

  “Not yet.” Ben nodded to the computer, and Dylan set to work. Armed with a tiny electric screwdriver, he had the hard drive out of the device in seconds. Then he took Athena’s cell phone too.

  “Leave her. She’s not connected, from what I see.”

  Dylan gaped at his brother. His dismissal of the woman had Dylan reeling. Sure, the man was savvy and would never be deceived by a person claiming they were somebody they were not. But Dylan had other feelings on the matter.

  “I disagree. She needs further questioning.” Dylan wasn’t backing down and he wasn’t leaving this woman behind. If they were wrong in suspecting her, she’d be released and no harm done. But if they failed to take her and she was a pivotal player in this plot…

  Ben shook his head. “She’s baggage. We got what we need and it’s enough to follow.”

  Dylan slipped the hard drive into his vest pocket.

  Athena reared out of the chair. “That hard drive doesn’t go anywhere without me!”

  Dylan moved fast, snapping her wrists behind her back and securing them with a zip-tie in a blink. She tugged the bonds, but she lifted her head high, the arch regal and her shoulders revealing that she was a true lady, trained for society.

  Who the hell was she really?

  He looked her over from head to toe. Something about a thickness around her middle had him dragging her from the chair to her feet. She wobbled on one heel as he patted her down, feeling fine bones and sleek curves.

  And an odd shape at her midsection.

  He arched a brow, and her eyes shot angry darts at him.

  “I need to see what this is,” he told her.

  She firmed her jaw. “Fine.”

  He reached into the waist of her skirt, past a tighter band of pantyhose and found vinyl. He extracted a bulging deposit bag and unzipped it to find it stuffed with cash.

  “My day’s earnings. I’d appreciate it if you don’t take the money.”

  His fingers seemed to sting from the heat coming off her body. For a brief second, his fingers had come in contact with warm, silky flesh.

  He shook himself.

  “Cher, we don’t steal money, but this will be kept in a safer place than your pantyhose.”

  Dylan took her by the shoulder and propelled her around the desk. “Since you’re so against being parted from your hard drive, it looks as if you’ve earned a ride to the interrogation room. Let’s go.”

  Ben followed them out. When Rocko and Chaz looked up from searching the premises, warrior masks firmly in place, they showed no surprise at Athena being led out from the rear of the building. Dylan’s face was harder to read as he propelled the obstinate woman around display cases. Amusement, irritation, resolve… all flickered momentarily as the alleged shopkeeper muttered under her breath, her shoulder like granite under his touch.

  When Dylan reached the back door with Athena, Rocko peeled off from the group. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Give the place one last sweep, boys. Then it’s on to Colonel Jackson.”

  Dylan caught Ben’s words as he passed through a back room to the door he’d so easily broken into. He didn’t agree with taking the woman directly to Colonel Jackson just yet—he was worried about Ben influencing the colonel and convincing him of Ben’s own belief she wasn’t involved. She had more to tell them, and Dylan was set on getting it out of her. No way was she innocent in this game, not when the whole boutique smacked of money changing hands.

  Apparently it was money that was being used to shut down the Eastern power grid, effectively closing all banks and bringing the whole coast to a screeching halt, allowing laundered money to be siphoned out of the system with no one the wiser. At least, that seemed to be the plan.

  Reaching the vehicle, Rocko opened the back door for him and Dylan placed a hand on top of Athena’s head to help her duck under the frame. The springy curls winding between his fingers shouldn’t give him such a shock of surprise or pleasure but when he removed his hand, he still felt the silky curls on his skin.

  “Sit here.” He pointed to a seat and she plopped into it hard without the use of her hands and adequate balance. He realized sometime between here and the office, she’d kicked off her lone heel.

  He examined her for a moment. Her looks could place her as foreign or Creole or any other New Orleans mashup. Only thing he was certain about was how her beauty hit him like a missile. She hadn’t changed her story or wavered at all since he’d found her. Maybe he was wrong that she was involved and was just an innocent caught in the shit storm.

  She turned her head to pierce him with her angry gaze. “You’re making a mistake. I don’t know why you searched my boutique or what is even going on, but you’ve got the wrong person.”

  “We’ll see.” If she wasn’t involved in the cell threatening the US, then whoever was using her boutique as a place to pass money into the right hands was going to know soon enough they were found out and Athena would become the target.

  “You’re sure about this? We can still let her go,” Rocko said quietly from behind him.

  Athena’s gaze drilled into Dylan.

  He gave a hard nod. “She goes.”

  “What am I being accused of? Selling a woman a gown and a matching hat and gloves? Or maybe selling her partner a tuxedo?”

  “Don’t say another word.”

  Ben got behind the wheel and the others piled into the SUV. Dylan climbed in next to the woman, far too aware of how small she was compared to him. He must be crazy, but in the past few minutes, he’d gone from suspecting her of being a terrorist to knowing he must protect her from them.

  Chapter Two

  Who the hell was he to order her around? This was nothing to do with her, just some kind of raid gone wrong.

  Athena’s mind worked over everything that had happened in the past hour and couldn’t shake the shock that left her fingers icy cold.

  Or maybe that was the hard plastic that bound her hands together. These men were monsters and the one guarding her like a big dog was the worst of the lot, ordering her around like some kind of animal. Get in, do this, do that. Don’t say a word.

  The first chance she got, she was calling the police, the mayor and her senator, in that order. She’d outfitted all of them for various events and surely could use her relationship with them to pull strings that would get her freed.

  Along with a big apology. Not that a little I’m sorry would make up for the fear or indignities she’d experienced. The man had reached down her pantyhose, for God’s sake.

  And she didn’t even have shoes.

  The men in the vehicle were silent, their big bodies barely jostling as the leader drove, but she was aware of the man next to her seeming to shift closer and closer every mile they went. She glanced at the small gap between their thighs and drew hers tighter to her body, inner thighs cramping with how tense she was.

  He glanced at her and then away. “Port in a storm.”

  The leader’s eyes loomed in the rearview mirror as he stared at the man beside her. The whole SUV seemed to crackle with energy. What did those words mean?

  “No fucking way,” the leader said.

  “Ben, you know what will happen if we go to Jackson. What if we’re wrong about this?”

  They were speaking in vague terms, but she knew it was about her.

  “Port. In. A. Storm.” The man beside her couldn’t have used a colder tone.

  “Goddammit, Dylan.”

  She blinked. Her guard dog had a name besides Pure Evil or Indifferent Jackass?

  “I’m not budging on this. I’m going with my gut.”

  Silence reigned. Then suddenly the driver named Ben slammed on the brakes and whipped the vehicle around.

  “Don’t think I won’t tell Jackson about this,” Ben said.

  “Why don’t you tell Pere too?” Dylan’s wisecrack had the other guys snickering.

  Athena darted her gaze between them all. Now that she looked more clos
ely, she could see resemblances between most of them. The same brows or eye colors.

  Ugh, she shouldn’t think of them as human. They’d raided her boutique—they were monsters.

  Except now they had names and laughed over jokes.

  No, she couldn’t allow them to become human in her mind—she was a prisoner, held against her will.

  She wiggled her hands behind her back, and Dylan snapped his head to look at her. “Can you feel your fingers?”

  “They’re cold.” Her tone was icier, and he tightened his lips.

  “Try wiggling them. I didn’t make the bonds too tight and it should be fine until we reach our destination.”

  Okay, not human, still part monster, and he seemed to be the most horrible of them all. How could she be heard? Where were they taking her anyway? What in the world was port in a storm?

  After a few minutes, the vehicle stopped. Dylan unbuckled his seatbelt and then hers. He opened the door and guided her out.

  “You’re sure about this?” Ben asked again.

  “Trust me.” Dylan’s voice was gritty as he took Athena by the shoulder and closed the door. The SUV pulled away.

  Darkness seemed to swallow them, but as he propelled her forward, she made out the lines of a building. A house set between fencing with small patches of yard around it.

  “Where are we?” she demanded, fear bubbling into her throat. Was he going to hurt her? Leave her here? Panic hit, and she swayed.

  He stopped walking and moved to face at her. “Look, we’re special ops and the last thing we’re going to do is harm you. This is a safe house.”

  Port in a storm… She was being taken to safety in the midst of the hurricane that had become her life in the past hour.

  She stared at him unblinkingly.

  “You can trust me.” His voice seemed softer, less rigid, less… frightening.

  “Am I in danger?”

  He didn’t answer right away, and she couldn’t make out his expression in the darkness. Hell, even in the bright light of midday, she doubted she could discern anything from his stern expression.