Chapter 2

"Yes, sir," Mia snapped. "Sorry for the delay, sir!"

"Gear up, Kodiak."

Mia dropped her bag onto the floor of the van and then met the eyes of each of the men sitting there. All but Romeo dropped his eyes. Mia shook her head before bending and opening her bag. She pulled her off duty weapon from its place in the small of her back and sat it in the case before pulling her camo pants out. Standing, she unbuttoned her jeans and let the zipper down.

"Is this a floor show?" she snarled at Romeo.

Aidan shrugged his shoulders, his eyes on her long legs and the amount of flesh visible beyond the tiny red satin thong she was wearing. He glanced back up at her face, laughing when he saw the look and the emotions in her eyes. "Hey, if it helps when we get back I'll strip down to my shorts for you, Mia."

"Romeo! Kodiak! Cut the bullshit and get ready to deploy!"

"Cutting the bullshit, sir," Aidan sang out, sitting forward just a bit so that he could run his hand from her ankle to the tiny bit of red satin that bisected the softest pussy lips he'd ever felt. Then her hand jammed down, her thumb landing exactly on the painful pressure point.

"If you don't want to have to fire your weapon with your nose, I'd suggest you watch where that hand goes," she hissed out just a bit too low for Demon to hear.

Aidan smiled at her even as he felt his eyes welling up with tears of pain. "Yes, ma'am." When she finally let go of his hand, she realized he hadn't learned a thing. "Who does your waxing, Mia? Smoothest pussy lips I've ever felt."

"You never will learn, will you?"

"You expect me to?" He brought up his hand to his nose and breathed deeply of the sweet fragrance of the juices she'd left on his hand.

Mia jerked her camos up her long legs, buttoning the fly quickly before tightening the belt. Her Sig Sauer went into its holster at her side, her hunting knife in its sheath. A small semi automatic weapon was thrust into the side of her boot and she stashed a handful of throwing daggers into her belt. When she was finished, she squared away her jeans and her bag before taking her seat next to Romeo.

"Sure you don't want to go for a drink after work?"

Mia glanced up at the tall, well-built, gorgeous specimen of man who sat so easily beside her even knowing that they were heading into a possible gun battle that one or both of them might not make it through. "I've already got a date after work, Romeo. Besides, do you remember Cindy Chase?" She blinked her pretty eyes up at him innocently.

"Cindy ... Chase ... Oh shit, Mia, you can't believe everything that girl says. She's psycho. She trashed my truck."

"Yeah," Digger broke in. "Little Juliet didn't like her Romeo fucking around on her. I thought she was going to force feed the boy some rat poison."

Horse howled with laughter. "She did a job on his truck," he bellowed, then hee hawed. His soft country twang was easy to discern in his voice. "That boy needs to learn how to relate with the ladies, not just piss them off."

"I hear that," Casanova said. "One of these days, dude, one of them ladies is going to go loco on your head and not just on your truck."

"I don't know how she knew it was my truck. I'd just gotten it the weekend before..."

Mia smirked but tried to hide it. She thought she'd done well until Digger called her name. "Mia, you didn't happen to have anything to do with Cindy and Aidan's truck?"

"Me?" She widened her eyes and tried to keep a straight face. "Why would I help one of Aidan's brain dead cheerleader girlfriends out?"

Aidan stared at her, his eyes narrowing. "You did, you showed her my truck, didn't you? What the fuck, Mia?"

"Okay, boys and girl. This is a bad one, get your game faces on!" Demon called back. Mia settled down on the back seat next to Aidan, ignoring the look on his face that promised retribution later. "What we got, Demon?"

"Male and female in their twenties. Married but busting it up the hard way. Two kids supposedly hiding out in a back bedroom. Man is using woman as a shield and wants us all to leave them alone. I think if that happens, we'll end up with a murder suicide."

"Shit." Mia's soft utterance was echoed in the faces of the men around her.

"You can say that again," Aidan whispered and nodded his head at the building that was currently being surrounded by cops, a police helicopter whizzed around it which added to the noise and confusion. There were snipers in the building across the street, and people ran in front of them, guided away by uniformed police. It looked like something out of a bad 'B' movie.

"What floor Chief?" Aidan called out.

"Fifteenth and the elevator is out of service, folks." Demon laughed at their moans. "We're going to have to hump it."

"There's no way to sneak attack from inside, is there Chief?"

"There's one doorway into the apartment. Three windows but none with a fire escape." He grabbed the small bar built into the dash of the van as their driver stopped, rocking with the braking motion. "Kodiak, Romeo, take the roof, we might have to go for a roof entry."

"You got it, Chief. I don't know if I can pull his lead ass back up though," Mia snickered.

"Oh no, honey, you get the rope and the swinging. I know I can handle your weight and I know you love it on top." He wiggled his eyebrows at her seductively. "You'd enjoy every minute of it."

Mia couldn't help but think she probably would and she felt a flush heat her cheeks. She bent, hiding her face from Aidan and grabbing the rope that was under their seat. She thrust it against his rock hard abs. "Keep imagining, Romeo. I'm no Juliet."

"Maybe I'm tired of Juliets," he said softly so that only she could hear. "Maybe I want someone with a little more fire, a woman who can take care of herself and doesn't cry every time she breaks a nail. Did you ever think of that, Mia?"

She shook her head. "Don't give me this shit now, Aidan. You always do this when you've broken up with your latest floozy. Now we've got a woman and a couple of kids to rescue. Get your head in the game."

"It's in the game." He gave her a frustrated glare before coiling the rope over his shoulder. When the door to the van opened, he grabbed his assault rifle and was first out, staring up at the mammoth of steel and glass in front of them. "It's going to be a long trip up," he moaned and then held the glass doors for the rest of the team. Demon was growling into a head piece, collecting intel from the cops that had secured the building. He shook his head as he caught up with the rest of them in the stairwell.

"Okay, they've evacuated everything from the tenth floor up so civilians shouldn't be a problem. The window you two will be looking for is in the front, third from the right. It leads into the living room. The perp's been screaming out the window, shouting threats and letting off an occasional round to let the cops know he was serious. Any questions?"

"Anyway we can get him away from the window until Kodiak does her swan dive routine?"

"The city cops have a negotiator standing by. He's waiting for my go to make his initial call. I've seen the rap sheet on the perp, this kid's done everything but murder and he's a step away from that now. Kodiak, you get in there, you take him out hard. No fool stunts got me. You keep an eye on your six since Romeo seems to be fascinated on yours."

"Yes, sir." Mia said the words but she knew she wouldn't do anything until she had a better idea of what was going on inside that apartment. Watching your father be killed in front of you is something that is hard to get over, no matter what kind of bastard the man was. She wasn't going to put those kids through that, not if she could help it.

They were quiet except for the sound of boots and the squeak of leather the rest of the way up to the fifteenth floor. Demon gave her one more look before heading through the door and the other men rubbed their hands over the top of her helmet. "Don't get dead," Horse said. It was a line from his favorite movie and he used it as often as he could.

Mia just rolled her eyes. She hitched her rappelling equipment a little more securely over her shoulder and glanced at Aidan. "Ready for this?"

"I'm not the one that's going to be swinging into the unknown, Mia. Are you ready for this?"

"Just don't get butterfingers on the rope," she said and jammed her elbow against his gut.

"I've never dropped you yet." Aidan's golden eyes glanced back at her as he passed her and led the way up the rest of the stairs to the roof. The building manager was waiting up there for them and he huffed importantly, tugging at his belt as he held open the door for them.

"A woman? You've got a woman to go up against Ryan Kelly? That man would eat you for breakfast, honey."

"I'm hard to digest. Where's this window?"

"Over here. I just hope you know what you're doing. Kelly is a bit of a bastard. He hits that sweet little girl he married and beats on his kids as if that's what they were put on God's green earth for. I'd have kicked him out a long time ago but for the little ones. They don't deserve what Kelly gives them and that's God's own truth. I told the missus that I would kick the bastard out and keep an eye out for her and the little ones but he has her terrified. Yes sir, that Kelly is really a bit of a bastard." He hitched his pants up again, tugging the waistband over his overflowing middle.

Mia waited for the verbose landlord to take a breath. "Mr. Greenaway, it would be best if you stayed back and let us work." Mia sat her assault weapon down, leaning it against the railing that ran around the edge of the roof. She stepped into her gear, before glancing down the side of the building and estimating how much rope she'd need to hit the window dead center. Hopefully, if it all worked right, she'd have a minute of surprise on her side of this deal for her to decide what to do. Her instincts had never failed her yet.

She glanced up, startled when Aidan tightened her belt for her and began to feed the rope through the eight ring.

"No stunts, Mia. You get in, you do the job and save the day and then we all go back to our day off. Got me?"