Storm Warning (Security Specialists International Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

on the basis of her Army record and after a few Skype interviews. She’d never be able to pay them back, but she’d work hard for SSI—and to make a new life for her and her mother in Idaho.
    “Is there anything else we need to know before we go and get your mom?” Dev asked.
    “No—that’s the whole mess.” She scanned the two men’s faces. Both wore the calm expressions of the highly trained Marines they were. But what was behind those facades now that they knew the mess they might be wading into? “You don’t need to come with me…”
    Dev growled and Andy frowned. Okay, maybe that was insulting, but she had to give them an out. She had no clue who her father might have backing him up at the cabin. She needed to approach this from a different angle, one they’d understand from a military viewpoint.
    “Guys, the mission has changed. This is more than getting my momma out of a lightly secured hospital…”
    Now, both men glared. Okay, that approach was probably even more insulting.
    “Dev … Andy … with Sean being the law in Mingo County, this could turn into a real goat rope…”
    “Jesus,” Dev turned to Andy, “can you believe this?”
    Andy shook his head. “Nope, she must not have processed the part about her being our new sister.” Then he turned, his gaze fierce. “Let me spell this out. Me and Dev would kill for you, bury the bodies, and lie like bandits about it. No militia or a fucking rapist bastard wearing a tin badge will make one bit of difference—we’re staying.”
    Dev used his finger to turn her face toward him. “So, soldier … stop trying to protect us. We’re here. We’ll do what we need to do to rescue your mom and then take these assholes down once and for all. End. Of. Story.”
    DJ let out the breath she’d been holding. The sense of relief knowing she wouldn’t have to go it alone was much bigger than she would’ve thought. She might’ve left her crew when she left the Army, but she now had a new crew, a new team, in the Walshes. It was a damn good feeling.
    She turned on the Jeep and drove out of the parking lot onto the snow-covered highway. “Okay, here’s the layout of my family’s property and cabin…”
    As she drove back to where her life had begun twenty-eight-years ago, she briefed her team and gave them as many details as she could about what to expect.

Chapter 2
    3:00 a.m., in the hills outside of Red Bone
     
    The three of them hunkered down in a copse of snow-laden trees off to the side of her family’s cabin. A cold chill had settled in her belly. The area echoed with bad memories of arguments and abuse, diluted only by her mother’s love and sacrifice for her only daughter.
    Please be here and unharmed, Momma.
    DJ shook off the fear fileting her insides and fixed her attention on the target they needed to breach. As far as she could tell not much had changed since she’d left home, in either the surroundings or the character of the people who lived there.
    The cabin built by her great-great-grandfather with hand-hewn logs and cement-sand-lime chinking still looked as if it would fall down any second. The fieldstone fireplace had giant cracks and tilted toward the back of the building. The wooden porch sagged, and the window to her attic bedroom was still boarded up from the time she tried to escape in her junior year in the middle of the night. Her father had never seen any need to “gussy up” the exterior.
    There were some concessions to the twenty-first century—two satellite dishes hung precariously on the rickety eaves. Her father had probably justified those expenses as a cost of doing business.
    “How do you want to do this, DJ?” Dev spoke in a low monotone.
    After she’d briefed the guys on the way here as to the physical layout of the property, she’d offered the mission lead to Dev or Andy. Both men had declined in favor of her home field knowledge. Their continued faith in her went a long way in calming her nerves and