Aegis Group Lepta Team

FRIDAY. UNKNOWN, IRAQ.ERIN LOPEZ BALANCED HER weight on the ball of her right foot, doing her best Olympic gymnast impression. The crate had to be at least a decade old and wasn't structurally sound. She pressed her ear to the side of the building and listened to the vibrations transmitted by the stone. She willed them to tell her something, impart her captor's secrets, but all she got was a very cold ear for her trouble.When she'd first been dumped down here, she'd told herself that someone was coming to get her. As poorly organized as this group was, NexGen's security would find her.She'd held fast to that idea for all of twenty-four hours.The last day hadn't provided her with any reason to believe someone was coming for her, and that meant her chances of getting out of here were getting fewer by the second.The reality of her situation was that to these people she was a foreigner working for a foreign company taking what should belong to the local people. If NexGen

FRIDAY. UNKNOWN, IRAQ.RILEY CAUGHT SIGHT OF another pair of men in long, white garments. They were being trailed from both sides. That accounted for four of the eight they'd identified as a threat."Grant? Nolan? Can anyone hear me?" he said, keeping his voice low."They're following us," Erin said.Fuck.There was some kind of interference on the comms. Once again, whatever toys these people had didn't make sense for the kind of operation they were running. "This way." Riley grabbed Erin's hand and pulled her into the darker shadows of one of the homes."What are we doing?" Erin whispered.Did he lie to her and keep her calm? Or did he bank on the hope she was cool under pressure given her background?He rolled the proverbial dice and decided to take his chances. The woman in that video who'd fought back was someone he'd like to work with."We're cut off from my team," he said. "We have a vehicle parked past these homes behind a service station. I need to get

FRIDAY, MOSUL, IRAQI KURDISTAN.MARK FOREST CLIMBED THE stairs to the ramshackle building that served as Allied Security's headquarters. It was a far cry from the air conditioned, comfortable office he'd had with NexGen, that was for sure. He'd had it made, and that upstart bitch had cut him off at the knees. Now he was reduced to running his company out of a shack and doing what amounted to the armored Uber of the Middle East.He peeled off his Kevlar vest and hung his helmet on a peg to dry. Though the city was undergoing a massive clean-up effort, and everyone wanted a piece of the pie of what was to be the biggest, organized city development in decades. He sat at his desk, the weariness weighing on his shoulders.It wasn't supposed to be like this. He'd scraped his way to the top. That NexGen gig was supposed to be his. He'd put in the hours, recruited the men, did the jobs. The side work was what it took to keep business going. Everyone knew there was a cost, and they tru

SATURDAY, ERBIL, KURDISTAN.MARK FOREST CHECKED HIS phone again.His bad luck was changing. The dark cloud that had shadowed him ever since the day that woman stepped into his life was finally clearing out. His little kidnap scheme might have failed, but he'd entrusted ignorant people with a task far beyond their skills. What did he expect was going to happen?This time, he'd chosen his team wisely.Every man stood to lose everything if they let Erin Lopez live. They were committed to shutting her down and salvaging their futures.It was only a matter of time until she realized what she'd inherited. Mark had assumed they'd nipped the problem in the bud when he'd organized Osman Elahi's death. He was just another NexGen employee. Mark had found out too late that Osman was a paranoid bastard who made backups of his backups.Finally a text message came through.An address."Buckle up," Mark said to the men clustered into the back of the van.They'd get one shot at thi

SATURDAY. AEGIS GROUP SAFE HOUSE, ERBIL, KURDISTAN.ERIN SAT AT THE head of the table and picked at her food. She didn't have much of an appetite though she knew she should. Her body hummed with awareness of the man to her left. She refused to think too much about their stolen moments together. They were adults. They had needs, but needs didn't have to mean more than simply satisfying themselves.Yeah, when had that ever worked for her?She glanced up and caught Thomas staring at her. He hadn't said much of anything to her. not an I'm sorry or a glad you're okay. Her skin crawled and the last urge to eat shriveled and died.When he'd first been assigned to her Erin hadn't paid him much mind. She'd gotten an email her previous guard was being replaced, and the next day Thomas was there to pick her up and take her into the office. They'd hardly spoken to each other.It was after she'd wrapped up Osman's project and got a little caught up that she'd stopped working during the