Traceless. HelenKay Dimon

over her as she gasped for breath.

      Her panic only made the leader angrier. His motions turned jerky and more forceful. He tied the knot behind her head and pulled tight, causing pain to spread through the back of her head.

      “Easy.” An unfamiliar male voice, barely a whisper, sounded directly behind her.

      A hand cuffed the side of her head. “She’s a—”

      “Right. Let’s get ready,” the leader said.

      His voice she recognized. It was burned on her brain. He talked with Connor. He acted as if he knew all about her husband. And now he talked with someone who hid in the shadows behind her. Another man so quiet she hadn’t even sensed his presence.

      “You have to give Connor more time.” She had no idea if that was true but she needed noise. Needed them to talk to her before all of the sensations bombarding her dragged her under.

      Then a presence stood right behind her. Not touching but close enough for something in her skin to tingle.

      “Don’t underestimate him.”

      It was the voice. The one she didn’t recognize. And the fury in those three words had her shivering so hard she couldn’t stop.

      * * *

      Connor lowered the binoculars. Snipers used them for a reason. This set had increased magnification and brightness so that being more than two hundred yards away from his target didn’t matter at all. These worked for up to a thousand yards, so he could easily see two armed men walking around inside the cabin and the top of another person’s head. Even in the poor light he could tell the hair color matched Jana’s.

      That was enough for him. He checked his bulletproof vest and started to leave the protective outcropping of rocks where he hid with Cam. Connor was careful not to make too much noise but rubble and rocks crunched beneath his feet.

      Cam grabbed his arm. “Hold up.”

      That wasn’t happening. Already Connor’s mind spun with a list of horrible things his wife could have endured. He needed her out of there right now. “Jana doesn’t have more time.”

      “According to the GPS in her phone she’s not even in there.”

      Throughout the entire tense flight across the country, they’d talked strategy. Connor’s second-in-command, Davis Weeks, stayed back at Annapolis headquarters and provided intel via the comm they all wore during operations. Even now the entire team listened in and stayed connected via earpieces and watches.

      All Davis’s tracking and calculations put Jana at the charity headquarters a few miles away. Connor knew that was wrong and Davis agreed. “The GPS is too easy. It’s a setup,” Connor said.

      Cam nodded. “Probably.”

      “They would have found her cell and planted it somewhere else as a red herring. That’s what the guy on the phone was talking about when he dared me to find her.”

      “Still, we need to be smart.”

      “Listen to the man.” Holt Kingston made the comment in the comm then appeared in front of Connor two seconds later.

      Connor blinked, trying to figure out why the entire three-man Corcoran traveling team surrounded him all of a sudden. He’d grabbed Cam and brought him along more because he was in the house when the call came than anything else.

      Without Cam, Connor would have called in favors and caught a private flight on his own, only clueing the team in once he was gone. This was about Jana. It was his fight.

      Cam clearly hadn’t agreed and had, instead, immediately sounded the alarm. Now Holt, the de facto leader of this squad who answered only to Connor, and Shane Baker showed up. They were supposed to be taking some time off after a tense kidnap rescue in Mexico. So much for vacation.

      “When did you two get here?” Connor asked.

      Shane shrugged. “We booked it over here after Davis and Cam called us in.”

      “Which you should have done.” Holt emphasized his point by checking his gun. When he looked up again he was every inch the former special ops soldier—formidable, serious and lethal.

      That described the entire team and was doubly true for the traveling members. They spent their lives on the road and seemed to prefer it that way. Corcoran operated as a private security firm. When the training they offered wasn’t followed and things went wrong, Corcoran cleaned up the mess.

      Holt was the ultimate expert in planning victim extractions. With Cam, a guy who once worked in black ops so secret even Connor couldn’t find intel on the work, and Shane, Holt’s best friend and former partner in special ops, this was not a group a smart person took on.

      Still, this was not just any assignment to Connor. “This is personal.”

      Cam exhaled, his frustration clear in the lines on his forehead and tick in his jaw. “Jana is important to all of us.”

      Holt talked right on as if he had the go-ahead. “Shane’s done some recon, and you’re right about the charity offices. Looks like a trap. There were four men stationed outside—hiding, but we found them—and no heat signatures inside.”

      Shane hissed. “That doesn’t necessarily mean—”

      “Don’t.” Connor took a threatening step forward. He knew what Shane was suggesting, that maybe Jana wasn’t alive, but Connor couldn’t hear it. Wouldn’t let it be true.

      “How did you find us?” Cam asked, diffusing the tension pulsing around them.

      “Your GPS works fine.” Holt looked around. “So why do you think she’s here over any cave in the area?”

      Connor handed over the binoculars and pointed to the falling-down shack in the distance. “Davis said that was the nearest usable building.”

      “Didn’t you hear Joel’s report?” Cam asked.

      Holt shook his head. “The comm blinked out on us for a few minutes. Not sure why.”

      “Joel repositioned a satellite to provide extra surveillance for us here.” Cam clicked a button on his watch and showed the small screen to Holt and Shane. “Joel also somehow broke into the charity office’s alarm feed and rewound to see Jana being dragged away there hours ago. A black truck drove in this direction. It looks like the abandoned one we nearly tripped over on our way here.”

      Connor appreciated Cam filling in the blanks. Even saying the words, thinking about some man grabbing and hurting Jana, made fury thunder in his veins. Since Joel Kidd operated as their tech whiz and managed to get the confirmation, that was good enough for Connor.

      Shane grunted. “Gotta love Joel’s tech voodoo.”

      They had to move, but Connor needed to make a few things clear. He had priorities and they were all going to be bound by them. He was the boss and this was nonnegotiable. “Before we start—”

      Holt held up a hand. “Connor.”

      “Don’t say it, man.” Shane shook his head. “Just don’t.”

      Connor hoped the operation went down smooth and fast, but he knew from experience things could go wrong. Innocents could get caught in the crossfire. “You save her. I don’t care what happens to me. You get her out alive and uninjured.”

      “We all go in and we all come out.” Holt’s voice rose as he talked.

      “Right.” Connor didn’t test his men further. They got it. Didn’t like it, but he knew they understood. He pointed at Shane and Holt. “You two cause a diversion at the front and draw the gunfire away from Jana and the inside of the cabin. Cam and I go in hard through the windows at the back.”

      Cam nodded. “Done.”

      “Let’s move.” Holt said the words then took off with Shane. They