Page 127 of Dangerous Mission

I push forward, scanning the trees, the ground, looking, listening.

Hoping for another sign of her.

“Anything else? Over.” I check in.

“Negative. Over.”

As much as I don’t want Aria to be with a damned man,the thought of her alone in this jungle makes my heart thud erratically.

“Scout.”

I freeze, worried about Truck’s tone. “What?” I rasp, “Over.”

“Do you think she did this on her own? Over.”

Narrowing my eyes, I see a small divot. I bend and brush my finger over the slight depression but my mind racing with questions I can’t fathom.

Could she have drugged me and bound me?

Chapter Sixty-Three

“Brother,” Beast grips my arm. “You need to lie down.”

I shrug off his hold. “The team has this. Griffon and Agent Torres’s men are on shift.

“Two fucking days.” My voice is brutal. “She’s been in that goddamned jungle for two days. I’m not stopping.”

He shoves a pair of dry boots into my hands. “Take care of your feet.”

Grudgingly, I jerk them out of his hands. He’s right. I’ve been soaking wet for days. I can’t afford for the flesh to fall off my bones now. Not when my woman is out there.

As I stalk under the staging tent that the feds brought, Beast is hot on my heels. He’s on the phone, talking fast as fuck and in a low tone. “Are you sure?”

Something about that question makes me whirl.

The boots thud to the ground, forgotten. “What did they find?”

He holds up a hand.

Rory stalks into the tent, mud smeared on his face. He shakes his head. “No sign of her to the east.”

Boiling anger makes my hands clench. “What are you doing here?”

He holds my gaze with a cold, flat look. “Looking for your woman.”

I take a step toward him. “Did you cut her air hose?”

Rory tosses his raincoat over a chair. “Now why the fuck would I do that?”

“Who the hell knows?”

We’re yelling, the tension as thick as lava.

Then he chuckles softly. “Back down. I like her. I would never do anything to hurt her. She reminds me of my little sister, full of fire. When that asshole Brundage went after her at that meeting, I was the second person with my hands on him.”

I don’t know if it's exhaustion or something else, but I blow out a hard breath as some of the rage leaks out of me. Rory’s background was pretty much empty, but clean. Like I knew it would be. “Then who?”

His expression darkens. “Doesn’t Brundage make much more sense? He had access to their gear. I just carried it down the hill.”

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