Page 34 of Double the Dilemma

Razor let out a snarl before he could pull it back. What the fuck?

CHAPTERNINETEEN

KARISSA

She was going to kill him. Okay, not just him, but Razor and the rest of them too. This was why she had no time for men. They only thought with their dicks and let their jealousy cloud their judgement. Or they tried to piss each other off so they could have a good fight. Which was clearly where this was going if she didn’t get control.

She wrenched her arm away from Razor and stood. Everyone looked at her, and while she wanted to glare at them all, she kept Poseidon in her sights. No, wait, he said he went by Taz now. Well whatever his name was, she was going to give him a piece of her mind. “Alright, that’s enough,” she barked. “You want to go a round when we’re done, fine, but until then, sit down, open your ears, and shut your mouth. Or I’ll tape it shut like I did that time in Tijuana.”

Taz grinned at her and then mimed zipping his mouth. Not that she believed for a second that he would honor that.

She turned to Savage and said, “These are my former teammates. We ran covert ops all over the world.”

“What kind of team?” Savage asked.

Karissa looked at Simba, who gave a subtle nod. She looked back at Savage and said simply, “Mercenary. Top-level classified. Unofficially, we took orders from the government; officially we didn’t exist.”

The silence in the room was deafening, and the tension ratcheted up even higher. Karissa turned and looked down at Razor, who looked shocked and pissed. His gaze held hers, and she saw the anger, hurt, and disbelief in his eyes. She felt a small twinge of guilt at springing this on him, but what could she have done? Technically, she wasn’t ever supposed to reveal who she was and what she had done. If Razor couldn’t get past that, then fine.

“I knew she was a badass,” Ink said with a smug smile, leaning back in his seat. “I mean, who else would have the balls to put a gun in Prez’s face, and then kick her man’s ass?”

Karissa ignored him. Instead, she continued, “I left the team about a year before I met Esme.”

“You must have a hacker on your team, because there is no record of you ever leaving the country,” Code remarked thoughtfully. “Everyone leaves a footprint, and you’ve had jobs consistently in the US. None of them appeared to be fake.”

Well that answered the question of whether they ever looked into her. She arched a brow at him. “You’re not the only hacker around, Code. And there are, perhaps, some that might even be better than you. Just saying.” Code scowled at her, clearly not appreciating her jab at him and his skill set.

“As entertaining as it is to watch you all realize you’ve had a mercenary in your midst, we have other things that need to be dealt with first,” a voice said.

She looked at the man who stood on Simba’s left side, and she bit back a grin. His cut called him Jag, but she knew him as Ares. He hadn’t aged much in the years since she last saw him, though he had more gray showing in his scruffy beard and short black hair. His eyes were a hard cast-iron gray color, and he had a scar on the left side of his jaw that she gave him during training. He was always a hard man, not speaking much, but when he did you listened. He was their second in command on missions, and he was still in the same spot as VP of their club. “Looking good, old man,” she smirked at him. “Still haven’t found someone to pretty up that face yet, huh?”

He just gave her a cool smile. “Xena, we both know that you couldn’t pretty up this face any more if you tried.” He glanced over at Razor pointedly. “Though it looks like your taste has run more to pretty boy, lately.”

“Fuck off,” Razor snapped at him, and Karissa knew his patience was running thin. Guess it came in handy to know the man in your life this well.

“How about you tell us why you called Glitch for an extraction in the first place?” Simba suggested, ever the peacemaker, though still very much in charge.

Karissa nodded and launched into her explanation of Sena and the events leading up to today. Her former team leaned forward, their faces a mixture of emotions. Most were stone faced, but a few had pissed off expressions, especially Taz. He looked like he was ready to jump up and hunt Sena himself. When she finished, she added, “I called Glitch before everything happened yesterday with Sena. I got pissed off that Razor wouldn’t let me leave, and told her to speed you guys up because I knew Sena was getting close. In the heat of the moment, I forgot to call her back and tell her that you didn’t need to come. So I guess you guys can be pissed at me about that.”

None of them said anything for a few moments, digesting the information. It was something she had done right along with them when they had been a team. She watched each of them, her heart twisting as she took them in. They had been her team, her lifeline in some hairy situations, and they came because she asked. She missed it, she realized. Having someone at her back like this.

Simba, Taz, and Jag were all the same, and so were the others, though a few of them had aged and had a few new spots.

Ursa, or Hermes formerly, had only changed in that his thick, black beard had grown longer and thicker, and he had two braids woven into his hair. His forearms sported the same ink as he had gotten before their final assignment, but she didn’t see any more on his biceps. He stood at six-four, with well defined muscles and a calculating look in his eyes that made her want to smile. She glanced quickly at his cut. He was their Treasurer, and she had no doubt he excelled at the role. Numbers had always been his thing.

Tiger, AKA Titan, had somehow managed to grow himself a bit of scruff on his face, having been one of the few who tried to grow a beard and couldn’t. He was one of their shorter teammates at six-one, if six-one could ever be considered ‘short’, but that never stopped him. His beard had gone from bright blonde to a straw color, with a few silver strands threaded in. His tawny brown eyes were narrowed in thought, and a small frown line creased his forehead. He was their Sergeant at Arms, and had a brightly colored tattoo on his left bicep, but other than that, he hadn’t changed much. Though, the tattoo was surprising to her, because the man hated needles.

Vulture, formerly Hercules, still looked like a modern day Viking. He had a long thick dark brown beard, with his hair shaved on the sides, and a thick braid on the top that went down his back, woven in an intricate style she had yet to master. He had whiskey brown eyes, and small gauges in his earlobes that made her want to roll her eyes. Like most of them, his arms and hands were covered in ink, and she could see some more peaking out beneath the collar of his shirt. He topped out at six-seven, and was the tallest of all of them. He was their Enforcer, which suited him perfectly.

Warg, she knew him as Hades, sat with his face completely blank, but his dark eyes were hard. He was a large black man at six-four, with a thin goatee instead of a beard, and black hair that he wore shaved on the sides and thick on top. He had always worn it braided when they went on missions, but she liked this look for him too. His cut declared him as Enforcer.

Finally Copper, AKA Apollo to her, who was Japanese-American, looked at her and smirked. He was the shortest of the men, standing at only five-eleven, but he was lean and wiry. Being smaller never stopped him, and he could lift and do just as much work as the bigger men. His black eyes were intrigued, and he had no ink on his arms, but she knew he was sporting plenty on his chest, shoulders, and back. He was apparently their Secretary.

The only one missing right now was Glitch, and then they would have the whole team back together. Except Glitch rarely left her home, perfectly content to send them all their data and information from there. Though she knew that if she needed her, Glitch would come running.

Finally, Simba broke the silence and said coldly, “And after all of that, you decided to stay here?” He leveled Razor with a chilling glare. “If I didn’t know she could kick your ass, I’d hand it to you for trying to force her to stay.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Razor returned. “Karissa is my Old Lady, which means—”

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