Page 44 of Iron Willed Warrior

“Yes, but I hate this part of a mission. When we’re in the open, on the move, but we haven’t encountered the enemy yet. I can’t sit still.”

That I could understand. Garon Westwick and his head of security would arrive tomorrow. I expected they’d send a man ahead to prep and secure their rooms. That was something I intended to find out today. Until we had eyes on the enemy and had a sense of what we were really dealing with, we’d both be antsy.

Planning was all well and good, but a mission didn’t truly take shape until you were in the thick of it.

“We could relax, since that’s what Cameron and Brianna came here to do,” I said.

Brynn finally glanced at me, eyes flashing. “Relax?”

“Take a bubble bath in the fancy tub.” I quickly added, “Justyou, I mean. Alone. I wasn’t suggesting…anything else.”

Smooth, Lynx. Very smooth.

Her cheeks pinked. “We should take care of that errand. Setting things up for River, like he asked.”

“I’ll take care of it. I could use a walk around the resort to get a feel for it.” I didn’t want to leave her alone, but Brynn could handle herself. We could both use some breathing room.

“Then I’ll go hang out by the pool. Meet some of the other guests and make some posts for Brianna’s socials. I need to change.” She took a few things from her bag, went into the bathroom, and came out wearing a silky cover-up. I assumed she had a swimsuit beneath. She grabbed her phone and a room key. “See you in a bit.”

“Later.”

The door snicked closed.

“Fuck,” I muttered. Fifteen minutes into the op, and I already wondered how I was going to make it through days more of this.

The rest of my unpacking was next, including the tools I always carried to make adjustments to my prosthesis. With those chores finished, I changed into pool wear. Shorts, a tee, and slip-on shoes. As much as it bugged me to go around unarmed, it couldn’t be helped. Damn undercover work. Even a grumpy asshole like Cameron Clay wouldn’t carry a gun to the resort pool.

I did have the rest of those important items to unpack, though. Had to find the right kind of hiding place.

Before leaving, I set up a few secondary security measures so we’d know if anyone came into the room. A tiny foldedpiece of paper, along with one of Brynn’s long hairs, positioned carefully in the doorframe. Old school, but effective.

With a small daypack over my shoulder, I walked down the hall, allowing my usual gruff expression to take over my face. Time for some recon.

When I’d been planning my cover over the last few days, I had tried to keep it simple. My usual mantra for most things. There was no way I could pull off playing someone totally different from me. I wasn’t Brynn with her acting skills. So Cameron Clay had to be rough around the edges. A loner. He was Brianna Waverley’s manager, but he wasn’t some fancy agent working at a big talent agency. Cameron was more of an opportunist. The type of guy who had met a pretty, talented girl and latched onto her. Men like that were a dime a dozen in this world, and I had to expect that Garon Westwick would understand it.

He didn’t have to like me or believe I was a decent manager. Just had to see that I was possessive of the woman I considered my property. And Westwick woulddefinitelyunderstand that.

As far as clothes for my persona, I had gone with warm-weather resort wear. Shorts, cargos, lightweight shirts. Not all that different from what I typically wore in Mexico or Columbia or Belize when I was working. Plus a couple pairs of nicer pants and a sport coat in case I had to dress up. As I strolled around the resort, I was glad to see that I fit right in. While this place was upscale, most of the guests were dressed down. Heading off to the pool, spa appointments, or yoga classes.

I walked the winding paths that led from building to building. The spa was in a separate area, as were the gym and tennis courts. Hiking trails branched away from the property and into the rocky hills. I made a note of possible hiding places, both for myself or for weapons.

Or for stashing a body.

But I lucked out when I walked around the rear of the main building, on the side with the delivery entrance and the employee doors. I spotted a thick metal door markedRoof Access. A chain looped around the handle with a padlock securing it. But the padlock wasn’t actually locked.

I tugged the door open, finding a stairwell. At the top, another door led onto the flat roof of the main building. It was covered in tarpaper with air conditioning units lining one side. There were some wooden crates turned upside down and positioned in a circle, with a large glass ashtray on one of them. Cigarette butts piled high. A few empty beer bottles and a dry fifth of Jack Daniels.

Unlike the rest of the resort, this was purely a functional space for maintenance and storage, but it looked like the employees had converted it into a break area. Judging by the chain and padlock, they weren’t supposed to be up here. Nor was I.

This would doverynicely.

I lowered my daypack to the ground, unzipping it. A smaller bag was inside. My personal goody bag. Among other things, it held zip-ties, a gag, and a syringe filled with enough sleepy-time meds to knock out a full-grown man in seconds.

I found a nice hiding spot inside a stack of discarded pieces of metal, ductwork, and other debris. Odds and ends that the maintenance crew had left here instead of hauling offsite. My bag of goodies vanished behind a rectangle of metal. Easy for me to recover later.

Then I took out my smokes and lit one up, taking a seat on a wooden crate. A sense of calm flooded me. Brynn was an epic distraction for many reasons, but I couldn’t forget my ultimate goal here.

After she planted that virus on Westwick’s devices, and River had gotten whatever access to Stillwater’s network thathe needed, that wasn’t the end of my mission. No matter what Brynn or her former FBI friends had to say about it. I intended to make sure she stayed safe. That was a given.

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