make him wear a tux to the wedding, but closed it when he realized the wolf shifter was staring intently at Landon, almost as if he could hear what the person on the other end of the line was saying from fifteen feet away. Of course, if half of what Landon had told him about shifters was true, Clayne probably could hear what the person was saying.
Angelo looked closer at his former captain and noticed that Landon’s mouth had tightened into that familiar grim line whenever there was trouble. Whatever it was, it involved Ivy and Danica because Landon opened the sliding glass door and asked them to come outside.
“It’s Tate,” he said when the two women got there. “Tate, I’m putting you on speaker. Go ahead.”
“I’ll keep it simple,” Tate said. “The training exercise we were down here for just got a whole hell of a lot more real. We got ambushed by a bunch of damn hybrids. Brent, Gavin, and I made it out with a few scrapes, but the rest of the guys with us weren’t so lucky. Neither were Declan and Kendra. The helicopter they were on got shot down a few hours ago. Best we can tell the bird ended up right in the middle of those bastards. We’re going to need help with a rescue.”
Ivy’s perfect complexion went pale at the mention of hybrids. Derek didn’t look much better. Who could blame him? The guy had practically just professed his love for Kendra and now she was missing—or worse. Damn.
“Ivy and I are on the first plane John can get us on,” Landon said.
There was silence on the other end of the line. If it weren’t for the background noise in the distance, Angelo would think the guy had hung up.
“I’d rather you didn’t involve John,” Tate finally said.
“Why not?” Landon asked.
“We’re not sure we can trust him. Or anyone else in the DCO except you and Ivy. This was a setup from day one, and John is the guy who sent us down here.”
Landon exchanged looks with Ivy. She nodded at him. What the hell was that about?
“Tate, I know you don’t want to spend time going over details you don’t think are important, but if you’re going to drop a bomb on us like this—that you think John set up your whole team to get slaughtered—you’re going to have to give us something more to go on.”
There was another long pause before Tate answered. The more the guy talked, the more stunned Angelo was. While he didn’t know John personally and couldn’t say if he was the one who’d set up Tate’s team, he was pretty damn sure Tate was right about the whole thing being an ambush in waiting from the start.
“And you can’t get any support from the American forces down there?” Ivy asked. “I mean, with all those marines who got killed, you’d think they’d be ripping the place apart to get out there and track down the people responsible.”
“They wanted to, but the political shit hit the fan the moment we told them there were dead marines and a downed navy helicopter out there in the jungle,” Tate said. “The local government reps shouted foul, claiming we’d violated the use-of-force restraints placed on the U.S. military assets they’d allowed into their country. The Costa Rican president and legislative deputies shut everything down and put a hold on all operations while they investigate. There’s no way we’re getting help from anyone down here, which is why we need you and Landon, and we need you down here fast. Buchanan, too, if he’s available.”
“Count me in,” Clayne said.
Landon and Ivy asked a few more detailed questions—like whether they knew the coordinates where Declan and Kendra had gone down and most importantly, how many hybrids they might be facing.
Like Derek, Angelo kept quiet. This guy Tate was tense enough. Knowing two guys he’d never met were listening in on the conversation wasn’t going to make things better.
“Regardless of what you believe, you know I’m going to have to bring John into this,” Landon said.
“No way,” Tate said.
“I know you don’t trust him, and I understand why. But if we’re going to rescue Declan and Kendra, we need John’s help to get us into the country and set us up with the equipment we need. If we try to do this on our own, it could take us days to get there, and Kendra and Declan may pay with their lives. Are