I couldn’t wait.

So I wanted this done.

Now.

I lifted the martini glass I’d asked the bartender to fill with cranberry juice, took a sip, put it down and murmured into my microphone, “This dress sucks.”

“Shut it, Sylvie,” Hawk ordered in my ear.

I didn’t shut it.

I muttered, “And I’m sitting down and these shoes still hurt.”

“Quit bitchin’,” Hawk replied.

“I didn’t sign up for this crap,” I told him which was a lie. It was anything goes with my jobs and this wasn’t the first time I tricked myself out. Usually it was to be a honey trap though I didn’t take that role all the way, ever.

This time, it was different.

“You’re gettin’ paid, babe, and I bought the f**kin’ dress and shoes you get to keep. Stop moaning,” Hawk returned.

Like I would ever wear this dress again.

The shoes… that was a different story.

I didn’t tell Hawk that.

“I hope you read the fine print in my contract that says if I have to show cle**age and wear shoes with a heel over three inches, my rate doubles,” I shot back.

“Baby,” another voice came into my ear and this was my man’s, “shut the f**k up, concentrate and don’t sit there muttering into your tits makin’ it look like you’re waitin’ to f**k over some ass**le. He sees you doin’ that shit, these guys we’re hunting will take you out and tonight is not my night to lose you.”

That made me shut up and my eyes slid down the bar to take in the reflection of Creed sitting alone across the restaurant in a semi-circular booth with a martini glass in front of him too. He had his hand resting on the table next to the glass and the liquid was so high, I knew he hadn’t brought that glass to his lips.

I was not surprised. Even undercover, he wasn’t a vodka man. He was all about beer and tequila.

Like me.

His eyes were aimed at the room, not me and, since I didn’t have anything better to do, I felt it safe to study him in the mirror.

An excellent way to pass the time.

He was in a suit and I’d never seen him in a suit, not even back in the day.

Needless to say, he rocked it.

Hawk didn’t buy that suit for him, it was Creed’s. It was also made for him as in, literally. And, earlier that night, when I touched the lightweight wool fabric, it was so plush and fabulous, I wanted to rip off my clothes, rip off his jacket, wrap it around me and roll around in it naked.

Alas, this option wasn’t open to me. Still, I told Creed and I did this with intent. As suspected, when I imparted this information on him, Creed’s eyes flashed and then they promised I’d get that opportunity, just later.

Another reason I wanted this job done.

He also had on a tailored shirt, opened at the collar, in a color that matched his eyes. This brought into stark relief not only his tanned face and the strong, muscled line of his throat but also his rugged, scarred features. It too was made for him and fit so well, it hugged his abs, ribs, chest and shoulders in a way that, if it breathed, I’d be jealous.

He had his gun in one side of his shoulder holster, my gun in the other, a .22 in an ankle holster and a knife in his other boot.

In other words, he was seriously strapped and that was good since he was the man who had my back.

After telling me off, I heard him say to Hawk even as I watched him through the mirror and saw his lips did not move, “Do you have any visual at all?”

“Negative,” Hawk answered.

Creed and I were inside. I was the contact. Creed my backup, who would eventually follow me, hopefully undetected, to where the “deal” would go down.

Hawk and his boys were outside. Hawk on the prowl with his main man, Jorge, and another of his crew, Mo. He also had men in a surveillance van and eyes on the street, the back alley, the entrance of a nearby parking garage and the men’s bathroom.

I suspected (accurately) that Hawk was even more ready than me for this to go down. I suspected this because Creed and I had come in on the tail end of a job Hawk had been working for five months.

Apparently, some socialite in LA thought of her Mexican nanny as part of the family. She learned that her nanny’s sister, who had made a connection in Mexico to try to gain entry into the USA, had disappeared in the middle of attempting to seal this deal. Understandably, the nanny was beside herself and the socialite pulled Hawk in.

He investigated and found this happened often over the border to Mexican nationals so desperate to leave or to join loved ones that they didn’t check out the folks they handed their cash over to and thus they lost their money and their freedom.

Hawk wasted no time and got a lock on the slavery ring and the sister and it was sheer luck she was in Denver, Hawk’s home turf.

Extracting her safely was another matter which took frustrating amounts of time because it also took extreme amounts of preparation and finesse.

The part, or one of them, that made this job delicate was that, considering these folks were trafficking humans in the US of A, local cops had aligned with a federal task force to take down the entire ring which was operating multi-state. On the other hand, Hawk only had one mission, to recover the sister. So the task force wanted Hawk to back off. Hawk wanted to get the sister back to her family. There had been some butting of heads but Hawk Delgado was the kind of man who didn’t back down.

So he didn’t.

Enter me, posing as a madam of sorts on the buy for new talent. It had taken weeks and lots of work to build my false reputation as a viable buyer. Now that was done, I was to meet the contact tonight and he would take me to where they held their stock of available humans. I would confirm the girl was there, make the deal and skedaddle then Hawk and the boys would swoop in and recover the girl.

Easy.

I hoped.

“Visual. Front. Street. Mercedes parking three cars down from door,” Mo grunted into his microphone.

“Go time,” Hawk growled.

I sucked in a breath then lifted my glass to take a sip. My eyes slid back down the bar to the mirror where I could see Creed. His eyes were on me, intent, burning into my back.

He jerked up his chin.

I tipped my lips up slightly.

His eyes went to the door.

I put my glass to the bar and discreetly plucked the bud out of my ear, reached in my cle**age and grabbed my microphone, ripping it and the tape off and away.