Page 69 of Her Wicked Hero

“No,” Kane said.

“Kane,” Zed’s voice cut through the pre-dawn hours, Marcia’s head whipped around to look at him. “Never talk to Marcia like that again unless we are on a mission, and it’s life threatening.”

“Got it, Zed. I’ll start figuring out how to make this work.”

“Appreciate it. Work with Dex on this side.”

“I planned to. It’ll be fun finally getting to wake his ass up at the butt-crack of dawn,” Kane laughed. With that joke, Zed knew they were good.

When he disconnected, he focused all of his attention on Marcia.

“You’ll be there soon. Even better, Kane will probably be calling back in five minutes with more details.”

Her small hands were laying, palms up in her lap. She was staring at the wall. To anyone else, it might look like she was giving up, but Zed could actually feel the energy she was gathering around herself. She was harnessing her resources. She turned to look at him.

“That meeting you were going to have. Can it be now? Can your team come here while Kane gets his information?” She gnawed at her lip. “I mean they have to help set up protection, anyway, right?”

She was right. It was perfect.

He picked up his phone.

Marcia was at the point where she thought she might throw up. She’d been trying to get ahold of Mr. B., but he wasn’t answering, and the uncertainty was killing her. She knew she had to stay strong and focused, but what she really wanted to do was scream and cry. They were waiting on Dex and Gray to show up.

She was trying to rub the kick out of her neck when she heard smoky, soft laughter. She turned and saw Evie O’Malley step out onto the balcony with her.

“Let me guess, your neck hurts because you keep having to look up at all those tall men,” Evie said in a Southern drawl.

Marcia nodded. “I couldn’t understand why Aiden brought you here to begin with, but now I’m just so grateful to have someone I can look in the eye, I don’t care about the why anymore.”

“I brought lemonade and sparkling water, take your choice, they’re both for you. I figured you probably didn’t need any more caffeine this morning.”

Marcia took the glass of lemonade and drank a long sip.

“Thank you,” she sighed. “So, why are you here?”

“I’m here to tell you that you’re not alone. That these men will take care of you. One of my best friends was rescued by a SEAL from a Mexican jungle.”

“I don’t want to be rescued, I wanted to rescue myself,” Marcia said fiercely.

The smaller woman snorted and drank down half the glass of water. “Yeah, well that’s how Lydia has felt ever since Clint carried her out of that jungle. Trust me, she kicks ass. She helped me save my sister. I was just trying to say with all this firepower,” Evie waved her hand towards the men gathered inside, “plus the girls on your side, we’ll take down the fuckers.”

“God, I hope so. It’s been almost an hour, and they still don’t know if it’s Vi or Lesley who is missing. How can they not know?” Marcia looked at Evie helplessly.

Both women looked up as Zed opened the sliding glass door.

“Would it hurt you to bend over every once in a while?” Evie muttered.

Zed ignored her as he looked at Marcia. “Harold’s on the phone, he wants to talk to you before being put on speaker.”

Marcia couldn’t feel her legs, they had the substance of water. Zed had his arm around her in a heartbeat. He drew her down to one of the chairs and handed her the phone.

“Marcia?”

“Mr. B.? What’s going on?”

“Christie and Debbie are fine.”

“What does that mean? Burns? Bruises?”