The Single Lady Spy Series Boxset

by Tara Brown

  He got up and paced, ranting into the phone, “It's me, what's happening? Where is Steve? He said he was at his mother’s.”

  He paused and listened before snapping, “What does that mean, Franklin?” He sounded fierce, the kind of fierce I would never want directed at me. “Well, you misunderstood my meaning and went with it anyway. Steve has apparently gone rogue. Find him and gut him like a fish.”

  He slammed the phone onto the dresser and stared at me with the same severity he had just given Franklin, whoever that was. “Explain it to me again, every word can have a meaning.”

  “No. You tell me—”

  “NOW, EVIE!” He cut me off.

  I jumped and sputtered, “H-he told me you were both in Venice when you were jumped, and he was beaten while you were taken. He woke to the note from James with a stamp from this hotel on the back of it. It’s James' handwriting. I would know it anywhere.”

  “And this is after your home was burned to the ground, you were nearly murdered, and then went to basic training? You left your children to go to basic for three weeks? Evie, I am finding this all very hard to believe.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded along slowly, contemplating it all. “Me too.”

  "And when did I ever give you the impression I would leave a dildo on your doorstep?" I parted my lips to answer him but he continued talking. “Where are the children and your mother?”

  “You honestly don't know?” My eyes lifted. “Weren't you tracking me with those shoes?”

  “What?” His face flinched. “What shoes?”

  Shit.

  “So you never asked Steve to come to my house? You never asked him to leave me a note?”

  “No,” he snarled. “I sent you a postcard. Why would I come to your house and risk you like that after I went to all that trouble to kill myself?”

  My heart hurt a lot. Not a little—a lot. “So it wasn’t the best week of your life? The X and O kisses of course were not you. How could I be so dumb?”

  He eyed me like the answer was obvious but kept his mouth and all those smartass comments to himself.

  “Great.” I slumped. “Fuck.” I buried my face in my hands. “Steve must have put the tracker in a pair of shoes and left them at my house. So you don’t know where my family is?”

  “No.” He said it slowly like he was keeping his cool. “I don’t but I’m assuming Steve does. This is bad.”

  Steve! I was having a hard time fearing Steve. “Maybe, maybe not. What I do know is, I would die a thousand deaths before telling you where they are after seeing you with James.” Steve knew where my children were. If he was bad it meant he was there in my town with my mother and my children. I had to get word to her.

  Servario tossed me his phone. “Call your mother and warn her about Steve. If he found you, James will too.”

  I gaped at his phone like it was covered in the Ebola virus.

  He sat across from me on the couch. “I just don’t understand what the objective was, coming here and risking yourselves to find me. You really came all this way to find me? Because Steve said I was in danger? Me?” He was mocking me. He was mocking me?

  Not that I could really blame him. Flying to Europe to save an arms dealer from my ex-husband sounded almost worthy of a James Bond novel.

  “I came for James,” I lied.

  “Really?” He raised his eyebrows. “Go get him.” He held a hand at the door like I was free to go. We weren’t going to play Beauty’s Beast this time.

  “No.” I ignored being slightly hurt that he wanted me to leave. He was turning me into a fifteen-year-old girl. “You owe me answers first.”

  “No, Evie.” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t owe you anything.”

  Sighing, I silently admitted I still loved the way he said “Evie” with his accent. I gave him a patronizing smile. “You do. Why the fuck didn’t you kill James? Why did you stop me from killing him? Are you betraying everyone? I want some fucking answers, Gustavo.”

  He glanced off to the side. “That mouth of yours has gotten worse. Boot camp didn’t do you any favors. Let's go have a shower. I want you again, and I have no interest in the blue eyes or dark makeup. I like ponytail Evie better. I tell myself I don't like it when you share your weird hemorrhoids stories and burp after eating caviar, but I crave you, the real you. It’s vexing."

  “Absolutely not.” I pulled my legs in, hugging them to me. “Answer my questions first.” He was full of interesting ways to offend me.

  “Fine.” He flashed his eyes at me. “He was my way back in, Evie. My protection in the world is being the big bad wolf. The people James works for fear me. Saving James ensured they know I’m loyal to the cause of destroying the Burrow. It also sealed the deal that I am trying to find it as well.”

  I covered my face. “Then why the fuck did you drag me into all this?”

  “I didn’t. I saved you. The Burrow will protect you. You appear innocent to the people who matter. Your father made sure of that.”

  Exasperated, I pointed in a random direction. “Then who the fuck tried to burn my house down?”

  “Evie.” He warned and pointed at me. “I won't tell you again, stop shouting and stop swearing.”

  “You know what?” I got up and stalked off. “Fuck you, Servario.”

  His angry footsteps behind me scared me but I didn’t care. I headed to the shower and started taking my clothes off. “Let's get this over with. If you aren’t going to help me, then I'm leaving after the shower.”

  “No, you aren’t.” He laughed. “I paid for the night, I get the night.”

  “Your loss.” I slid my finger into my eye, dragging the contact out.

  “Don't do that!” He grimaced. “Dear God, why? Why do you always have to let me see all the things you do? Why can't there be a little mystery with you, Evie? You pass gas, burp, eat too fast, and lick your fingers. You take all the covers and kick them off and I'm freezing. You’re like—like a—wife.”

  I did the other eye, holding back my laughter. “What? This doesn’t turn you on? Think of me as the girl who saved you from ever settling down. We both know you’d cheat on her and end up divorced. What would happen to your evil empire then? You'd have it split up in bad-guy court.”

  His face was epic.

  "You think I didn't notice the condom? Clearly it's been a while since your last visits to the Hep-seedy clinic so you protected me from whatever you might have caught from the whores you've been fucking? You really think I didn't see that?"

  He was angry and the sex we were about to have was definitely going to be all about him. Nothing like getting fucked by an annoyed sex addict.

  The sad part was, it was still better than James.

  8

  Yeah, eh

  His body was wrapped around mine. I wondered if I could “coyote ugly” and sneak from the bed, I really only needed my trigger hand. I smiled down at the covers. I had taken them all and kicked them off in the night. He was probably huddling to me for warmth.

  Poor arms dealer.

  I lifted his hand and slid from under him with a great amount of effort. He moaned as I lay the covers over him again and tiptoed from the room. All I had was the dress that looked like a porn star had borrowed it for a shoot, so I grabbed one of his pairs of boxers and a dress shirt from the master suite. Luckily, the room was empty because I had forced him to sleep in the smaller room. He had agreed all too easily. I could only imagine the horrors that had gone on in the master suite. He had used a condom all three times we’d done it, like I'd said that was a bad sign.

  I pulled on my blonde wig and smoothed it against my head.

  The suite was empty, no bodyguards or random people around. He was alone. That was weird too. He was probably getting more paranoid after the whole Roxy thing.

  I walked over to the mirror in the hallway and drew on it with the lipstick in my clutch. Russian Red of course.

  Fuck you, Servario!

  I added a heart at the end and sm
iled. The humor wouldn’t be lost on him, just maybe wasted.

  I snatched his phone and went out the front door. It was ballsy and ridiculous to be leaving that class of a hotel in his underwear and dress shirt, but I didn’t care. I looked like a whore either way. There was no shameless way to do it.

  Of course, the water bra was where it belonged, in the trash. So I was back to being a regular-sized whore.

  I took the stairs, running all the way to the basement. The parking garage was similar to the one in Vegas. I dialed the number Jack had given me to our secure line for messages. “It's me. I’m on the lamb. I have his phone so he's going to be tracking me I'm sure. I'll go to the Trevi Fountain and wait.” I hung up and started to run barefoot through the streets of Rome.

  Only the actual Romans were awake in the wee hours of the morning. I flipped through his phone when I was several blocks away and pressed Steve.

  “Hello?” Steve answered sounding worried or at the very least tense.

  I snarled, “Steve, you little traitor. I honestly believed you were a good guy. The name really is deceiving.”

  He paused. “Evie? Oh thank God.”

  “The one and only.”

  “Oh shit, you scared me. I thought it was Servario phoning. He thinks I’m at my mom’s. I turned off the tracker on my phone but he’s some kind of magician.”

  I rounded a corner. “Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

  He sighed. “Evie, we are in hot water. Servario went back to being old Servario the minute we left you. He is all playboy from hell again. He and James are buddy-buddy again. He double-crossed you on James and I knew it. I wanted you to see it.”

  “Oh really.” I frowned. “So you sent me here, into a trap? Are you still with my mom?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t send you into a trap. I knew you could handle it.”

  “Put me on speaker phone.”

  “Hello, Evie dear. How are you?”

  I was relieved and scared. “Mom, Steve and Servario have severed their ties a bit. He isn’t working for him anymore. I came here and James and Servario are having themselves a bromance. I don’t know what to believe.”

  I heard Steve cry out in pain and smiled. “Mom?”

  “Yes, dear, we need to get off the phone now. I will be stripping him and flogging him in the yard when the kids go to school. Go buy disposable phones and call me from there.” The phone cut out as Steve screamed louder.

  Shocked, I looked down at the phone in horror. My mother really was unassuming. I almost felt bad for Steve and the fact he didn't see that coming. He was probably mid bite in a cookie when she attacked.

  I rounded the corner of the next block and stopped a man who gave me an odd look when he realized I was wearing men's underwear. “Trevi Fountain?”

  He pointed to the right. “Three blocks that way.” He wasn’t Italian, German maybe, and only about twenty. He acted like he was doing the crawl of shame too. We could have shared a cab probably.

  “Okay.” I blushed at the thought of that. “Thanks.”

  He smiled. “No problem. You American?”

  “Canadian.”

  “Oh.” He nodded with a bigger smile. “I like Canada. Very nice country, very nice people.”

  “Right.” I laughed. “That’s us. Thanks again, eh.” I padded off to the right, hoping Servario wasn’t awake just yet.

  When I got three blocks over, I beamed at the sign for the fountain, but when I rounded the corner, my delight was gone. Servario was standing in front of it, sucking all my joy from me. “Really?”

  He was out of breath. “You have a bad habit of leaving me before I am really ready for you to go.”

  “That's true.” I shrugged, desperate to be indifferent to his saying charming things. “What can I say? I like to keep you on your toes.”

  “Well then”—he chuckled, wiping the sweat from his brow—“you are excellent at your job then.”

  “Thank you,” I chortled bitterly. “Did you run here?”

  “Yes.” He caught his breath. “I did and I am not fond of running, especially not in the morning. Now let's get you some clothes and some breakfast. Those are my favorite underwear.”

  “No,” I fought back. “Servario, I'm not staying with you. You aren’t telling me the truth. I am fairly confident you have women to serve the only purpose you have for me. You can probably lie to them all you want and it doesn't matter.”

  His eyes gave away the emotion his face wouldn’t.

  I walked past him to the fountain. “You know I've never seen this.”

  He didn’t move with me, he merely watched me as I walked closer to it. After a moment, he spoke softly, “I could show you so much more than this one fountain.”

  “That's okay.” I tried to sound brave. “I don’t want to see the world your way. I want to see it with my kids and my mom. I want to take tacky pictures and stay in all-right hotels. I want to eat at the places where kids dine for free until four and my mom gets a senior’s special. I don’t want this yacht and jet and bank-account-from-hell lifestyle. The blood money never washes clean, and my heart hurts when I think about the things you do when I'm not around.” I pointed back toward the hotel. “I know you fucked the girls in that poker room last night. They told me you did. You are the big bad wolf and I am the stupid girl in the red cloak.”

  Servario’s face was intense. “Evie, I swear I am not always going to be this man. I swear it.”

  I pulled his phone out and took a picture of the fountain.

  He laughed. “You keeping that then?”

  “Yeah. When we were in the room earlier and you called someone and acted like you didn’t know where Steve was, who was that?”

  “Why?”

  “I phoned Steve and he said he sent me here to see you back in action. I just don’t know what’s a lie and what’s true anymore. I see you playing me like a fiddle, and I have this overwhelming sense it’s for a good cause. Like you’re risking me for the greater good.” I sat on the rock wall, feeling the spray of the fountain. “Maybe that’s what I want to believe though.” I sighed. “You know, I wanted to open a bookstore with a coffee shop in it. That was my dream when I got pregnant and couldn’t be a spy anymore.”

  He stepped to me hesitantly. “You still can.”

  “I know. But can you imagine yourself in a bookstore, helping me serve coffee, running the cash, and baking the muffins?”

  He licked his lips. “I could be the silent partner who sits upstairs, drinking coffee and reading.”

  “No, you can’t.” I felt a bit sick. “I don’t want a silent partner. I want honesty and simplicity. Instead, you have me caught up in some scheme, my husband is an undead fucker who my kids continue to miss, and my mom is an assassin. I'm here pretending I'm crushed that you lied about killing James but deep down I think we both know I came here to try to save your stupid ass and you don’t even need my help. You know my mom is probably killing Steve right now. Is he really a bad guy?”

  He took a step toward me but I got up, seeing the people I was waiting for come around the corner. I waved as I left. “See ya 'round, Servario.”

  “Evie, don’t go. Let me explain.”

  I flipped him the bird as I walked to Coop and Luce. Both watched him, fingers nervously moving to where their guns were hidden.

  Coop scowled at Servario but Luce smiled at me. “Nice outfit, Evie. As always, it is fashionable and interesting.”

  I laughed bitterly. “I wanna go kill James and go home.” I glanced at Servario as we made our way back to the street. “He isn’t a concern of ours yet. I'm sure one day the mission will be ending him, but right now, he's just a scummy arms dealer trying to keep the world safe.”

  “Great.” Coop exhaled loudly. “You got nothing from him?”

  “No. As per the usual, we’re being used as some kind of bait for something not good. We played right into their hands I think.”

  I filled them in as we made our way to t
he truck they had no doubt stolen, and to where Jack was waiting. I slid the phone across to him. “This is Servario's. Cut the GPS and you should be able to get some interesting things from it.”

  He laughed. “You believe a man like him has things in his phone for us to steal?”

  “No, but he might have numbers.” I scoffed at the kinds of numbers he likely had as Coop disabled the GPS and started rifling through it. “Speaking of S, we need to talk. You’re an ass.”

  “Evie, he was never going to hurt you. He recognized you right away when you laughed. I knew he’d cheat to win the night with you. James was oblivious to you, but Servario is considerably smarter than he is. He’s up to something but I think you’re right. He’s using us for the greater good. I hate him as a human being, but everything he’s done so far has helped the Burrow.”

  “No, dude.” Luce folded her arms. “It was a cold move, Coop, and you know it. We don’t sell out a teammate without their knowledge and consent.”

  “There was no time. The ball started rolling and we had to keep up. That’s what this job is, roll with the punches.” The cold shoulder was cruel.

  “Fine.” I spoke to Luce, “Can you take me back to the hotel? I need to freshen up, and I need some real sleep.”

  She winked. “Rough night?”

  “Yup.”

  She turned and led the way. Coop grabbed my arm. There was something in his steely eyes. “Be fast. I want to move on James and get out of here.”

  I pulled my arm away. “Piss off, Coop. You can play senior officer later.” I winced when I realized what I had said.

  "All right." He smiled and the cheeky remark clearly brewed in his mind, but we were gone before he got the chance.

  “So,” I questioned Luce, “Coop seems weird today.”

  “He got trashed last night.”

  “Nice.” I caught a look in her eyes and frowned. “What?”

  “Nothing,” she muttered as we got in the truck. “It’s nothing.”

  “Are you trying to say Coop has a thing about me and Servario being together? I already know that.”