Page 7 of Torn in Half

“Some twenty-three-year-old guy in Canada pretending to be a woman. He’s in a lot of author and reader groups on Facebook under his real name and has an author page under the fake one.”

“Seriously? How’d you find that out?”

He shrugged and gave her a sheepish smile. “It was more Nathan’s doing than mine. I just did what he told me to do and searched what he said to search. How he can work more than one problem at a time is beyond me. The kid’s a genius and deserves every penny the bosses pay him.”

Jenn had no idea how much her uncles were paying Nathan, but it had obviously been enough to lure him into the private sector. He was also a really nice guy, just a couple of years older than her. When her e-reader had been giving her trouble recently, and Brody hadn’t been around, Nathan had quickly fixed it for her.

“Will Kristen be able to sue him for any money he’s gotten from the stolen book?”

“Yeah, but I’m not too sure it would be worth her time. Nathan had me use this tool that showed the rankings for the book since it’d been published, and at most, he only made about a hundred bucks or so. If he’d had a larger following, it might have been a different story.”

JD started to fuss, so Jenn pushed the stroller back and forth. “So, he gets away with it?”

“That’s up to her. I just checked, and all three of the guy’s books are down. From what Kristen told me earlier, he’ll probably get his entire account shut down too. My guess is he saw some scam post or something about how to publish books without writing them and make a lot of money. I found a bunch of them while I was researching the guy. There’s a scam for everything nowadays.”

“Seems to be.” Jenn scrambled to think of something else to say, something that would keep Doug there, talking to her. This was the first real conversation they’d had since the kiss they’d shared, and she didn’t want it to end. God, she was a hopeless romantic whose object of her affection wanted to be nothing more than friends at the very most, and acquaintances that barely said hello to each other, at the very least.

In the uncomfortable silence that ensued, Doug glanced down at the stroller, then lowered his voice. “He’s asleep.”

Leaning forward, Jenn peered under the shade canopy. Sure enough, JD was out like a light, and that gave her an idea. “Great. I’ll walk back to the studio with you. It’s cooler in there for him.” Anything to spend a few more minutes with the man who owned her heart—too bad he didn’t want it.

Chapter Seven

Thanks to T. Carter and his black-ops connections, the Trident Security teams landed at a covert US-Philippines allied military training base where they wouldn’t have to deal with customs. They also wouldn’t have to answer any questions about why they were there.

The jet taxied into a private hangar where everyone began to disembark. Waiting for them were four nondescript vans, Chuck Sawyer, Pierce, Red, Carter, and Jordyn. The latter two were operatives of a clandestine US-government agency, Deimos, and good friends of the original TS Alpha team. They were also a couple and had been the first two calls Ian had made after contacting his brothers, their teammates, and the pilots. As per Carter’s and Jordyn’s system, he’d left voicemail messages for each, not knowing if they were together or not. Thankfully, they’d gotten back to him right away and had been somewhere close enough to get there before everyone else. There were very few people Ian trusted to keep his family safe, and most of them were now present.

Pierce and Red headed for the jet, pausing to shake hands with Ian, Devon, Nick, and Jake along the way, and joined the rest of the operatives unloading the go-bags, equipment, and weapons. Reaching the others, Ian approached his father first and pulled him into a hug. “We’ll get her back, Dad.”

“I know you will, son.”

Devon embraced the Sawyer patriarch next. “Hey, Dad. How’re you holding up?”

“A lot better now that you’re all here.” He glanced sheepishly at the couple standing nearby. “No offense to Carter, Jordyn, and the other team you sent, of course.”

He squeezed his father’s shoulder. “I’m sure there’s none taken.”

While Nick and Jake greeted Chuck, Ian turned his attention to the two Deimos spies. “Thanks for coming. Hope we didn’t interrupt anything important.”

Jordyn smiled and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Nothing that can’t wait, so no worries. I’m glad we could help—Marie means a lot to us.”

That was their mom—she meant a lot to many people. Ian didn’t think she’d ever met someone she didn’t win over almost immediately. No matter how busy she was, she always gave everyone her utmost attention, making them feel they were the center of her world at that very moment. She was a great listener, and if anyone was special to her husband or her sons, they were special to her too, even if she’d just met them. This was not just an assignment to anyone there—it was to rescue a woman they all loved and respected.

Ian shook hands with Carter. “Got an updated sit-rep for us?”

“Yup, and you’re not gonna like it. But let’s get out of here first. We’ve got a few rooms at a hotel near the target site. Hopefully, we won’t need them for long.”

Giving Carter a curt nod, Ian fought the urge to tell him to spit out the intel. But the spy was right—this wasn’t the place for it. They weren’t on their home turf. The hotel would be more private—and they’d brought signal jammers with them to block any bugs or long-range listening devices. Being paranoid in their business was a good thing.

“Let’s finish loading up and get going.” He’d call Angie on the way to the hotel and let her know they’d arrived safely. He also wanted to make sure she hadn’t gone into labor and not contacted him on the jet’s phone for fear she’d worry him. If she was in labor, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it from there. One of the hardest things he ever had to do was push his wife and unborn child to the back of his mind. Right now though, he had to focus on rescuing his mother, the only other woman who could bring him to his knees.

A half hour later, they were gathered in one of the penthouse suites of the hotel. The décor was a little over the top, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was there was plenty of room for them to prepare to go to war. And it was definitely a war they were heading into—those bastards had his mother, and hell was about to rain down on them.

Gathered in a combined dining/living area, they listened as Carter filled them in on his last conversation with Jones. He pointed to the image on the iPad Jordyn was holding up. “Crisanto de la Vega—runs the Davao del Norte division of the Barrera cartel.”

There were a few muttered curses around the room. The Barrera cartel was to the Philippines what the Diaz cartel had been to South America. The head of that snake, Emmanuel Diaz, had been killed by his second-in-command, Felix Secada, before he, in turn, had been killed by Darius during an undercover op that had gone FUBAR. Darius had shoved Secada’s nose into his brain while rescuing Princess Tahira who was now his new bride.

Ian was getting really sick of dealing with drug cartels. “What’s that got to do with our mom?”

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