Page 84 of Russian Rescue

“Good. Me too.” Marcus grinned.

“Well, that’s settled.” My heart lifted, knowing that at least the first part of our plan was a go. My mind moved to the new idea I’d just come up with. “And what do you two think if we start up our own little private contracting company? Me, Marcus, Knox, and Piper. Basically, hand-pick missions where we can go do some good in this world. We’ve got the dough to fund it now.”

“Yeah. Thanks to your investing knowledge, my five mil has doubled. I could live happily off the interest for life,” Knox said on a snort.

“Same,” Marcus agreed. “We’ve got plenty of money to start up the company if we all pool together.”

“And if we do this, we can keep funding our company by stealing the funds off the bad guys we take down,” I concluded. “For instance, how much dough do you think those sex traffickers have?”

Marcus snorted. “Hundreds of millions likely.”

“Then we’ll have hundreds of millions when we’re done with them.” My smile grew along with theirs. “The money we take from the bad people can go to fund the missions for the people who need us but can’t pay. And we can also be for hire for those that can afford us.”

“We’ll be for-pay only if the mission is right,” Marcus added. “I want to be really picky about what we do and where we go. I’m not going to be some errand boy for millionaires.”

“Definitely not,” I agreed. “Only things we’re all on board with.”

“So, you guys would do what exactly?” Irene asked.

“Well,” Marcus started, looking around at us for agreement, “I guess we’d do things like stop sex traffickers, rescue kidnapped people, shut down terrorist cells, and maybe some other smaller stuff. Like if a company gets their intel stolen, they can hire us to go get it back.”

“Exactly!” I said. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking. And don’t worry, ladies,” I said to Lucia and Irene, “Your guys would only go out a handful of times a year, so they’ll still be around to change lots of diapers.”

They both laughed.

Lucia slid a hand along Knox’s bushy face. “Well, as long as Knox is around to change diapers, then it’s fine by me. He saved me, and I won’t ever stop him from saving someone else in need.”

“Same,” Irene agreed. “I think it’s a great idea. You are all far too skilled to just sit around for the rest of your lives. I know Marcus doesn’t say it out loud, but he’s bored as hell.”

“I’m not bored. I could never be bored with you,” he argued.

“You’re bored.” Irene laughed. “And it’s okay. I love you like crazy, but if I wasn’t still working on my research, I’d be bored out of my mind. It’s time to get back out there and go have some fun with your friends.”

“Thank you, baby.” He kissed her cheek, and she melted against him.

“And,” I added, “as we start to get more missions, we can recruit some other retired operatives and let them off the leash to go have some fun and do a little good in the world. So, what do you guys think?”

Knox lifted his eyebrows. “Hey, Pretty Boy. That’s not a bad idea. Kind of like our own private security company.”

“I like it,” Marcus said. “And Irene is just finishing up her studies in the Amazon. We’re planning on moving back to the States soon. We could all pick someplace and move near each other to run our new company.”

“Yeah,” Irene said. “We want to raise the kids in the States. And I think it would be amazing to live near each other and raise them together.”

“I would love that.” Lucia smiled. “We could have so much fun when the boys are gone. Margaritas at my place!”

Irene lifted up her hand, and Lucia smacked it.

“Dude. We can raise our kids together!” Knox smiled at Marcus. “I’m gonna teach your kids so much bad stuff!”

Marcus laughed and shook his head. “Great. Uncle Knox is going to have them swearing by the time they’re out of diapers.”

“You guys,” Piper said, her green eyes sparkling. “Are we seriously doing this? Moving near each other and going out on ops as a team again?”

Marcus shrugged. “Why not? We’ve got the dough to fund it, the time to do it, and the skills to kick ass at it. The only reason any of us retired was so that we could go bust Knox out.”

“And I’m glad you did.” He blew out a breath. “I’ll never stop being grateful you sacrificed your careers for me.”

“It wasn’t even a thought,” Piper said. “We’d do anything for you. And hey, because you did what you did, and we all retired, we all got lucky and found our people.” She looked up at me and smiled. “If we’d have stayed in Elite Stealth Force, Marcus never would have been in Colombia to meet Irene, Knox never would have found Lucia, and Wes wouldn’t have gotten sloppy and been kidnapped by the Russians, forcing me to go save him and fall in love with his Pretty Boy ass.”