Page 1 of Inevitable

CHAPTER ONE

Saturday, July 15th

Brady lifted his binoculars and scanned the loading dock. Nothing. Not even the rats wanted to be out in the heat and humidity. Couldn’t blame them, considering summer in Lafayette meant a balmy eighty-five degrees at eight p.m.

“Anything?” the sexy voice in his mic asked.

“Nada, Claire,” Brady responded. “Quiet…too damn quiet,” he muttered as he leaned against a shipping container. “It would be nice to get this little soiree started though ‘cause this is not how I like to spend my evenings.”

“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Claire responded with a laugh.

Adjusting his ball cap, Brady let out a long sigh and prayed he and the guys were going to be able to keep the body count low. They were expecting the warehouse to get hit tonight by a group of small-time criminals that had been running up and down the state for the last couple of months.

The owners had contracted Trident Response Group to make sure that didn’t happen. They’d already had three of their other facilities broken into and, by all accounts, this was going to be hit next. The place was loaded with ammo and it was the team’s job to make sure no one got their hands on it.

Which, as far as he could tell, was going to be damn easy, because intel on the group suggested they were on the low end of the intelligence scale. Anyone who didn’t take into account all the cameras that were located on about any facility bigger than a bread box was just plain stupid. And that’s what they had: a bunch of men who had dreams bigger than the skills and intelligence to carry it off.

The trail of bread crumbs the idiots had left behind at every heist was like a freaking road map. A road map that had taken Claire about thirty minutes to figure out once she’d identified who they were. What the woman could do with security camera images was a thing of beauty, and all it ever seemed to take was a couple of puzzle pieces to run through one of her fancy algorithms for her to understand what the whole picture was going to look like.

Not only was the woman a genius, and gorgeous, she also happened to have one of the sexiest voices he’d ever heard. If the whole intelligence gathering thing didn’t work out, then she could probably make serious bank in the phone sex trade. If a thing like that even existed anymore.

Rolling his shoulders, he decided to quit thinking about Claire and her voice because nothing good was going to come out of it and he needed to concentrate on the op. Didn’t matter that the group they were expecting wasn’t all that smart. What did matter was that they were fearless. Which he knew from experience could be damn dangerous. Ammo did not mix with crazy and stupid. And the plan tonight was to make sure the two didn’t get real well acquainted.

It was a fine line the team would be walking because they had to let the idiots get their hands in the cookie jar to make the bust stick, but they didn’t want to allow them to blow the place to kingdom come. Which he’d seen a time or two during his stint with the FBI Hostage Rescue Team.

The faint sound of pop music floated through his earpiece and he figured Claire was torturing the team once again. Which she occasionally liked to do because…well, she could.

Girl genius was the wizard behind the curtain of all the company’s ops and the grease to their wheels. Without her mind-bending skills, the team couldn’t be half as effective as it was, which meant they never complained about her horrendous taste in music.

What he’d seen her accomplish in the two months he’d been with the company was mind-blowing. Which was saying something, considering he just left one of the world’s top information-gathering agencies. The FBI knew a thing or two about collecting, disseminating, and analyzing, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen top tech people operate before. But Claire and her magic kingdom could give any one of the alphabet agencies a run for their money.

The fact that you were assaulted with pop music every time you entered didn’t make the place any less impressive. It might make your ears bleed, but it was always worth it, considering she could get you whatever intel you needed and some you didn’t.

She always had cookies in her office, and that didn’t hurt either. She was part mad genius and part Betty Crocker. The fact that all of that was wrapped up in a body that made speaking sometimes difficult was God’s way of proving life wasn’t always fair. “What in the hell is that song, Claire?” Brady asked quietly.

“It’s a remake of ‘September,’ which was featured in the movie Trolls.” Singing along, she hit the high note perfectly. “I took my goddaughter to see it and now I’m addicted to the soundtrack. Doesn’t it make you want to dance?”

“No. Can’t say that it does,” he replied quietly. Truth was, the only time he ever felt like dancing was when he thought it might lead to something else. Something that did not require any clothes. He was pretty sure that’s not the type of dancing Claire was talking about, considering she dressed like a librarian.

A freaking sexy librarian.

Running his hand over his neck, he asked, “If I pay you a hundred dollars, will you change the music?”

“Sorry, Brady, no can do. As the driver of this operation, I get to pick the tunes. When you sit in my seat, then it will be your turn.”

“But I’m the one risking my life. Shouldn’t that get me something?”

“Pretty sure a couple of lowlifes are no match for your mad skill set. Doubt you’re risking more than getting your pants dirty. And even that might be a stretch.”

“If you all are done with your chitchat,” Hunter said, “I’d like to inform you all that we have activity on the north end of the property. Looks like our party is about to get started.”

“Roger that,” Brady responded. The music in his earpiece stopped as he saw headlights flash across the front of the warehouse. “I have suspects approaching.” Sliding into the shadows, he checked his weapon. “I’ll be in position in three minutes.”

Climbing the storage container, he got himself set up. Tonight, he was lead sniper, and if someone needed to be dropped, it was his job to do it. He turned his cap around, lay down on the hot metal and looked through his scope. “In position,” he said quietly into his mic. Somewhere between the slow, steady breaths, the rhythmic heartbeats, and the utter stillness that long-distance shots required, he found peace. It had always been that way and he welcomed the opportunity to do whatever was necessary to ensure the bad guys had a lousy day because he loved nothing more than making sure the side of good won. Whenever and wherever.

***

Brady, Hunter, Kane, and Miles ambled into the TRG offices high on their success. It had taken them a little over an hour to apprehend the men who showed up to clean out their client’s warehouse. The scumbags were in the custody of the Lafayette Sheriff’s Department and the only thing TRG had to do was forward the footage from the cameras they had installed last week. After that, they could tie a nice big bow on the op and call it a success.

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