Out of Control (Black Dragons Inc. Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Exclusive Excerpt

  Chapter One

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  Copyright

  Out of Control

  By Cindy Dees

  A Black Dragons Inc. Novel

  Hot SEAL. Hot spy. Hot reunion. Can they work together to find a notorious terrorist without killing each other first?

  When SEAL Spencer Newman accepts a dangerous mission to bring in CIA agent Drago Thorpe—the only man he’s ever loved—he expects things to get FUBAR. He doesn’t expect Drago to convince him to go rogue too.

  Drago regrets ending their torrid affair by pressuring Spencer to acknowledge their relationship publicly, and he wants a second chance. It’s always been a challenge to get the uptight SEAL to break the rules, but to eliminate a supposedly dead terrorist, they’ll need to operate outside the law. Tension heats up as they track their target, but can they find him before their attraction explodes out of control?

  Chapter One

  SPENCER NEWMAN looked around at the hundred or so SEAL operators of Team Ten currently stateside, along with their headquarters staff, trainers, intel analysts, supply guys, even the team’s doctor—everyone it took to keep the team up and running. God, he loved these guys, pains in the ass though they might be. Everyone was cleaned up and spit-polished for tonight’s retirement dinner and on their best behavior—a rare event for this motley crew.

  This was a dining out, so the wives were here tonight also. Truth be told, they were as necessary to a mission as any logistics personnel or drone pilot.

  Sometimes he got a little jealous of the other operators looking at dirty pictures of their significant others, taking Skype calls from home, and receiving the care packages that occasionally caught up with them in the field. A wife wasn’t in the cards for him, and a husband sure as hell wasn’t.

  The rubber chicken had just been served when his cell phone—his work cell phone—vibrated in the inside breast pocket of his mess dress. Frowning, he reached for it. The caller ID said Work Wife. That was what he’d named the operations headquarters that sent him and his men out on short-notice missions. Except Team Ten was currently in a training rotation and not on call to be deployed.

  He stood up and weaved between tables toward the exit as he pulled the phone out and muttered, “Go ahead.”

  “Lieutenant Newman, we need you to come in to Ops ASAP for a mission brief.”

  “You do know I’m training my guys right now, yes?”

  “This is a special assignment. Just you.”

  “Umm, okay. I’ll be there in five if you don’t mind my mess dress. Otherwise it’ll take me a half hour to run home and jump into field gear.”

  “Be here in five. This is an urgent tasking.”

  “Roger that.”

  DRAGO THORPE’S cell phone vibrated, and he backed away from the window he was using to surveil the Berlin brothel across the street. He set down the binoculars and dug his cell phone out of his pocket. Only a handful of people had this number, and none of them would contact him for anything other than a dire emergency.

  The text was anonymous, but it had been sent to a drop box he’d set up a decade ago. A drop box that had never once been used. Until now.

  You were right. They pulled him.

  A stream of curses erupted in his head. Only the operational necessity of being on a surveillance job kept him from shouting his fury and frustration to the heavens.

  He typed back: Is he coming?

  The answer made his teeth clench. They didn’t give him a choice.

  Great. He was going to be pissed off when he got here, then. He typed quickly, Open the envelope I left with you. Follow the instructions, and get the pictures inside it to him. He’ll know what to do.

  The response came back: Will do. Be safe.

  Right. As if safe had any place in his world. It hadn’t ten years ago, and it sure as hell didn’t now. And all of it had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

  Chapter Two

  “GOOD EVENING, gentlemen, Lieutenant Newman. This briefing is classified top secret, SCI, SAP.”

  Spencer nodded tersely. Special Compartmented Information translated to: he was about to learn strictly need-to-know shit, not to be shared with anyone else without a need to know… and without the proper security clearance.

  The Special Access Program designator meant it would be a black op—covert and possibly violent. Which explained the anonymous office in an anonymous building in Maryland, nowhere close to CIA Headquarters.

  An unmarked SUV had driven him directly here from Norfolk. His bug-out bags were stowed in the cargo area, and in the back seat of the vehicle, he’d awkwardly changed into operational clothing he’d dug out of them. Thank God he hadn’t had anything to drink at the party before he’d been pulled out of it. His mind was clear, if confused.

  He looked around the conference room. Four men. Four.

  What in the ever-loving hell was this? A normal SEAL mission had a support team of more like 150 people—intel analysts, mission planners, backup support troops, transport crews, equipment technicians, translators, cultural and subject matter experts… and the list expanded from there, depending on the specific mission.

  All his people could tell him was that a CIA tasking for him—him specifically—had come down a few minutes before they’d called him out of the banquet.

  CIA, huh? He studied the other men. One of them would undoubtedly be his field handler, and one would have to be a supervisor out of the Directorate of Operations. The third guy’s face looked vaguely familiar. He looked like a subject matter expert on the Middle East who’d supported Team Ten on a mission a number of years ago. But he’d had a lot of intel briefings from a lot of intel guys over the years, and they’d all started to fade together. The fourth guy honestly looked as if he was just here to handle the audio-visual equipment.

  The AV guy pushed the usual nondisclosure paperwork across the table, and Spencer signed it without bothering to read it. This was not his first rodeo. The upshot of the pages of legalese was that the CIA would, in fact, if he ever told anyone what he was about to hear, shoot him.

  Because he’d specialized in undercover operations in the Navy Criminal Investigative Service before cross-training into the SEALs, he’d been pulled out a few times early in his SEAL career to run undercover ops for Langley that he was uniquely qualified for. But it had been a while since that had happened. Not since that last mission with Dray—

  He sharply cut off that train of thought. Nothing good ever came from going down that mental road. Bile, or maybe just bitterness, burned the back of his throat, and he forced it down.

  “Lights, please.” The CIA briefer—probably the handler—a lean, intense guy who’d introduced himself as Charles Favian, nodded at the AV guy, and the overhead lights dimmed, leaving a white plexiglass screen glowi
ng in the wall. A grainy photograph flashed up on it. “Lieutenant Newman, do you recognize this man?”

  Speak of the devil. Spencer had spent years learning the fine art of suppressing his emotions, but he barely managed to do so now.

  Drago Thorpe. The name rolled through his mind, conjuring a string of conflicting emotions more quickly than he could catalogue them. The result was a turbulent stew of suckage in his gut.

  “Yes,” he bit out. “I know him.”

  “How do you know him?” That was the first time the gray-haired man at the head of the table had spoken. Spencer pegged him as the dude in charge of… whatever this was.

  He’d met Drago on a CIA op, for crying out loud. Gray Hair surely knew that. So why ask? Probably gauging his reaction to seeing Drago’s face. Logical, given how disastrously the two of them had parted company.

  It was hard to tell how much or how little Drago would have reported about their personal relationship after the mission from hell. Knowing the bastard, he’d written down every lascivious, humiliating detail of their affair and had taken pleasure in doing so.

  It was a freaking miracle he hadn’t been court-martialed after that mess.

  Schooling his face to be completely blank, Spencer answered stiffly, “I worked with Mr. Thorpe on a surveillance operation approximately ten years ago.”

  God. Had it really been ten years? It seemed like yesterday that he’d sat in a room much like this one and been assigned to work with Dray on a deep-cover op to observe a possible terror cell in Beirut. The mission: identify and report on the group’s target.

  Easy peasy.

  He and Drago had failed. Spectacularly. The cell had slipped away from them, made its way to a resort in Tel Aviv, and bombed a giant high-rise hotel, which had collapsed, 9/11-style. Over a thousand innocents had paid with their lives. He’d almost hung up his uniform after that disaster. His belly gurgled with nausea even now.

  Only a dare from Drago had stopped him from resigning. It had been the last thing the bastard had said to him before they parted ways, hopefully never to see each other again. I dare you to stay in the Navy and keep your secret. I’ll bet you a buck you can’t do it.

  Favian was speaking again. “…approximately nine days ago, Thorpe was spotted in Berlin, entering a brothel. Here he is leaving the establishment.” On the screen, more grainy imagery played, this time of Drago exiting a residential-looking building from the rear fire escape, fleeing on foot. Shot at night, the film looked to have been captured by some sort of surveillance drone.

  Favian continued, “Shortly after Thorpe exited the facility, the body of a man named Fayez Khoury was discovered dead.”

  The implication was obvious. Drago had killed Khoury.

  “Who was Khoury?” Spencer asked.

  “Yemeni national. We don’t know much about him.”

  So, not on the CIA’s radar. Meaning the guy wasn’t a high-profile terrorist or a low-profile suspected terrorist. Why did the CIA want the guy dead, then?

  Gray Hair leaned forward, abruptly tense. Here came the grenade tossed in the door, about to blow this antiseptic little briefing to hell. Spencer mentally girded himself. He was undoubtedly the unlucky bastard they’d chosen to jump on their grenade and suppress the damage.

  Gray Hair said heavily, “Mr. Thorpe did not have permission to engage in wet work, let alone eliminate a foreign national.”

  Boom. The blow to his gut was a painful punch. Drago had gone rogue, had he? Aww, Dray. What were you thinking? You knew these guys wouldn’t let you get away with murder.

  Truth be told, he wasn’t that surprised. Drago always had been a rebel at heart. He hated rules, hated to be told what to do. He had a reckless, angry streak in him. It might be sexy as hell and make him a wickedly effective operative, but it landed Dray in trouble sometimes.

  Like now.

  The third man—what was his name? Akuba? Akaba?—spoke for the first time. “This incident has caused an international diplomatic flap with the German government, and the State Department is scrambling to cover its ass. They’re yelling at us to get control of our guy.”

  Of course they were.

  Gray Hair leaned forward. “Lieutenant Newman, do you believe you could make a successful approach to Mr. Thorpe?”

  “To what end?” he replied sharply.

  “A rendition order has been issued.”

  Cripes.

  Gray Hair continued, “Two field officers have already tried to execute the rendition, but neither succeeded in apprehending him.”

  A glimmer of amusement flickered in his gut. Drago had a better nose for danger than just about anyone he’d ever met.

  “Given that you know Thorpe and have a past work history with him, we’re hoping that maybe you can approach him and bring him in.”

  Wow. CIA types didn’t often operate in the realm of hopes and maybes. They must really be desperate to have called him in like this. Particularly since Drago was likely to run screaming from the mere sight of him—or kill him.

  Favian was speaking again. “Thorpe was last sighted a week ago in Beirut. At a bar called al-Mandolib.” He pushed several photographs across the table, and Spence picked them up.

  Jesus H. Christ. The Mandolib? Surely it was no accident Drago had allowed himself to be spotted there. The guy might as well have sent him a personal freaking telegram inviting him to come play. Suddenly the timing of this assignment seemed a lot less like chance and a lot more like Drago Thorpe intervening in his life. But for what purpose? To save his career? Maybe save his life? Get back together with him? Surely not. Still, the Mandolib had to be a direct message to him. What the hell are you up to, Dray?

  It had been their place….

  It was a seedy local joint in a seedy neighborhood, dark, dirty, and not frequented by foreigners. He paused in front of the blacked-out windows, hand on the sticky iron door handle. Across the threshold of al-Mandolib lay a forbidden world, a tempting world he’d never before explored.

  Drago had laughed at him and called him a hick when he’d confessed he’d never been to a gay bar, let alone a gay stripper bar. Then the bastard had dared him to come here, tonight. As if a brand-new baby SEAL could ever turn down a dare. It was a point of pride that came with the trident pin. Probably a stupid point of pride, but nonetheless, Dray had dared him.

  Truth be told, he’d had a huge crush on Drago and had also been curious as hell about what he was missing by pointedly refusing to explore his sexuality.

  He pulled the heavy door open and stepped into a vestibule no bigger than a phone booth. It was filled with the massive body of a bouncer who had to be six foot six and nearly that wide. The guy was bald, his tank top shirt baring massive shoulders covered in black hair and colorful tattoos. Dark, lascivious eyes gazed down his body, lingering in the region of his crotch, and then rose lazily to his face.

  “Pretty boy,” the bouncer purred in heavily accented English. The bald head jerked in what Spencer took as permission to enter.

  He ducked through black fake-velvet curtains and stepped into… Hell.

  This was what Hell must look like.

  Lurid red light illuminated the low-ceilinged, smoke-filled, piss-scented space. The joint was crammed with men. Young men, old men, middle-aged men, fat men, skinny men, bearded men, pretty men, ugly men—all talking and laughing, flirting and rubbing up against one another with an ease he envied fiercely. To be that comfortable in his own skin, in his own secret desires—

  Nope. He had no idea what that was like.

  It wasn’t that he was completely closeted. He’d made no secret of being gay to his family, and they’d been reassuringly casual about it. He’d even had a few boyfriends in college. But… the SEALs. He’d just gone operational on his first team, and he had no interest in testing the boundaries of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell with a bunch of guys trained to kill in silence and not get caught.

  “Hey, Spence. You made it,” a gravel-filled voice rasped in
his ear. “Didn’t think you had the cojones.”

  Familiar fingers stroked lightly across his shoulders, and he lurched forward, hissing, “Seriously? Do you grope all of your coworkers?”

  Drago brushed past him, laughing. “Don’t get your panties in a wad, Captain Purity.”

  Drago guided him toward the bar, using his broad shoulders to elbow close enough to shout for two double shots of whiskey. Spencer took the marginally washed glass Drago held out to him and sipped cautiously. The booze was bad and cheap in al-Mandolib, but it flowed like water around them.

  He scowled and reluctantly followed Drago’s muscular torso through the crowd, mentally chanting, Do not check out his ass. Do not check out his ass.

  He had a great ass. High and tight and muscular enough to promise the guy would fuck like a stallion.

  Jeez Louise. No way was he sleeping with a colleague. Especially not on a dangerous mission like this, tracking a probable terrorist cell that appeared to be gearing up to do something big.

  “Lieutenant Newman?”

  He looked up at Gray Hair, shocked as hell to have zoned out like that.

  “Will you do it? Will you rendition Thorpe?”

  “I’ll try. I can’t make any promises. He’s the single best operator I’ve ever worked with. Might even be better than me.”

  Chapter Three

  Al-Hamad Waste, southeastern Syria

  DRAGO CAUTIOUSLY eyed a deathstalker scorpion, fully as dangerous as its name, as it scuttled to within a few inches of his face. Probably drawn to the shade under his camo net. He suppressed an urge to reach up and flick it away. Such a movement could reveal his presence in a faint indentation on the flat, broad floor of the wadi, in plain sight of the terrorists gathering at the compound in front of him.

  Southeast of Palmyra, Syria, lay a stretch of barren desert, the Badiyat al-Sham, that even ISIS in its heyday hadn’t bothered to claim. Formed by ancient lava, its red rock outcroppings and the red-beige dust they’d been ground into over the millennia stretched for hundreds of square miles of utter desolation.