Black List: HOT Heroes for Hire: Mercenaries: A Black’s Bandits Novel

by Lynn Raye Harris

  Colt shook his head. “I guess you don’t know much about Jace if you believe that. He’s actively hunting for Calypso. For you, Maddy. Not for Ian or for BDI. For you. So you can go home again and forget you ever met us.”

  That last bit made her heart hurt. “What if I don’t want to forget?”

  “You may not want to,” Colt said. “But you probably should.”

  It was weird as fuck watching Maddy’s house and knowing she wasn’t in it. Jamie Hayes did a credible job of looking like Maddy from a distance, but up close there was no way they were the same woman. She somehow managed to imitate Maddy’s walk and her mannerisms, which meant she’d probably fool a casual observer.

  She didn’t fool him. If anything, watching her from a distance made his heart ache more, not less. He’d sent Maddy away today. Left her with Colt and told himself he was doing the right thing in saying goodbye.

  So why didn’t he feel any better about it? Why did his chest feel hollow and his soul empty? And why did he have this deep unrest that he needed to be with her because she wasn’t really safe without him there to protect her?

  “Son of a bitch,” he growled when his thoughts didn’t subside. They just kept turning, kept accusing him of shutting her out when he should have held her close.

  Dammit, she was safe. He’d been on too many ops with Colton Duchaine not to trust the man. Colt was a lethal warrior with a wicked aim. He wasn’t going to fall down on the job.

  Jace stood and paced inside the house across the street from Maddy’s. There was nothing suspicious on the cameras. Nobody who stopped where they shouldn’t or crept around Maddy’s backyard or peered in her windows or anything.

  Maybe they were wrong about Calypso’s priorities. What was one woman who could possibly identify her in the scheme of things? Especially when she changed her look so frequently? The only immutable part of the description was the tattoo—and that’s assuming it had been real in the first place. A good operative would fake that as well. Hell, a good operative wouldn’t even have a readily identifiable tattoo in such an obvious place—unless she’d come to the business later, in which case she should really be getting the tattoo removed.

  He thought of the phoenix on his shoulder. It was identifiable, yes. It was not in an obvious place. He should probably have it lasered off, but it reminded him that he was the one in control. He could leave his old life in ashes and rise again. He’d done it twice so far, even if he hadn’t wanted to the first time. He could do it again if he had to.

  Ty strolled into the room. “Anything interesting?”

  “Did I yell for you?”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, man,” Ty said, hands up and palms out. “Just making small talk.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  “Copy that, brother.”

  Jace pinched the bridge of his nose and concentrated on breathing for a few seconds. “Sorry, Ty. I’m on edge.”

  Ty picked up a bag of chips from the coffee table and grabbed a couple. “So I gathered. The pretty doc?”

  “Yeah.” No use denying it. Everybody who’d spent time in this house over the past few days knew better anyway.

  “So wrap this up and date her. It’s obvious she likes you too.”

  “I wish it was that easy.”

  “Why isn’t it? Sure, we travel a lot, but so does she according to her file. It’s not like she’ll be sitting home alone.”

  “You know what we do here, right?” Jace asked, only half jokingly. “You didn’t just show up at BDI with no expectations of secrecy or danger—or has Ian been lying on the recruitment poster again?”

  Ty shrugged. “Just saying. Been in the game a while myself. But I’ll tell you what—if people in our line of work couldn’t date or marry or even fuck the same person on a regular basis, then I’d wager that all the spy and law enforcement agencies in Washington would have a lot fewer employees. But they don’t, do they? Because soldiers and spies and cops have lives—they may not tell the truth to their partner, or only some of the truth, but they still have lives outside this job, man. No reason why you can’t too.”

  What he said made sense—if Jace were anybody else. “Trust me, there are reasons.”

  “Whatever you say. But just remember that even if you aren’t going to date Maddy, some other guy will. And there’s no guarantee he’ll be the regular guy you think she needs. This town is full of people pretending to be something they aren’t.”

  “You know what? You aren’t helping. In fact, you’re pissing me off.”

  Ty laughed. “Sorry, dude. Just thought you should know that while you’re planning to be noble and give her up, that doesn’t meant somebody else will feel the same way. In fact, I’d wager that any man she dates won’t meet the standards you set for her.”

  “You sure are full of unsolicited advice,” Jace growled.

  Ty finished the handful of chips. “Just a service I provide. No charge.”

  Jace rolled his eyes. The guy was annoying but funny.

  “You want to know something?” Ty asked as Jace turned away.

  “What?”

  “My dad says that the first moment he saw my mom, he knew she was the one. It wasn’t lightning or magic or anything. Just a feeling he got right here.” Ty pressed a fist to his gut. “I always thought that sounded like a bunch of bullshit, to tell the truth. But he saw her at a high school baseball game. Rival schools. He swears he turned to his friend and said ‘that’s the girl I’m going to marry.’ Four years later, he did. They’ve been together ever since.”

  “That’s a sweet story, but what does it have to do with me?”

  “Don’t know. Just like to tell it when a guy’s having girl trouble.”

  Jace shook his head as he went back to the computers to study the camera feed. Nothing stood out from the ordinary. Nothing at all. Where the hell was Calypso?

  Maddy was starting to get worried. Angie hadn’t called yet and she wasn’t answering her phone. Had she gotten lost? It was more than two hours since they’d talked, and Maddy couldn’t stop imagining Angie’s car in a ditch somewhere.

  “Something happened to her,” Maddy said. “I just know it.”

  “She might have been delayed,” Colt said. “Or she stopped somewhere for a restroom break. Chances are she’s not getting a good signal, or her phone died. Both things happen to people, you know.”

  Maddy chewed a fingernail and paced back and forth. “I know, I know. But she sounded upset, and I just don’t know what she’s thinking.”

  Colt came over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Calm down, Maddy. I’ll make some calls.”

  “Thank you.”

  He dropped his hand and retrieved his phone from his pocket. When he started talking to someone on the other end, she went into the kitchen to get a bottle of water. Maddy opened the bottle and took a cool sip. Where the hell was Angie? No way would Angie do anything drastic to herself. She wasn’t that sort of person, and one groping wasn’t going to make her be so.

  Maddy was still pondering when her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She snatched it up, glancing at the screen. “Angie,” she cried. “I was getting worried.”

  “Hello, Madeline Cole,” a female voice that wasn’t Angie’s said. “Listen to me carefully and do not warn the man there with you about anything I say. If you do, your friend will die. Are we clear?”

  Maddy’s heart was in her throat. Sweat broke out on her brow, her chest, as heat flashed through her. Ice followed on its heels, leaving her shivering. In the movies, they always asked for proof before answering. But if this woman was calling on Angie’s phone, then she had Angie. But was her friend already dead?

  “Who are you? What do you want?” She whispered the words so Colt wouldn’t hear her. But he was still talking, so she didn’t think he’d notice she was on the phone too. There was a wall between them and he couldn’t see her anyway.

  “Oh, I think you know who I am,” the woman said. “We have met before.”

/>   “Calypso.”

  “Ah yes, you do know. Now here is what you will do. You will step outside onto your back deck. You will not inform your bodyguard and you will leave the door open. Understand?”

  Calypso knew where she was. Knew and was waiting for her. Oh God. “Are you going to kill me?”

  What a stupid question to ask. If Calypso was going to kill her, would she really say so?

  “I haven’t decided. But if you wonder if I plan to assassinate you when you are exposed and walk away, the answer is no. I have use of you.”

  “What about Angie?”

  “She is alive.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “Ah, Dr. Cole, you are in no position to make demands. Walk outside in the next three seconds or I will put a bullet in Angie Turner and dump her in this godforsaken marshland.”

  The deck ran along the back of the house. There were doors leading from the kitchen, the living room, and the master bedroom. They were all covered in blinds and the blinds were closed. Maddy went to the kitchen door and lifted a trembling hand to the knob. If she walked out there, Calypso could kill her. But if she didn’t walk out there, Angie might die.

  “Prove to me she’s alive,” Maddy said on a rush.

  “She won’t be if you don’t open the door. But I will tell you this—I’m a professional, Dr. Cole. I don’t kill people simply to kill them. I kill with purpose and reason. I have no reason to kill Angie—unless you give me a reason and then I will do so. But here you go,” Calypso said. “Now put the phone in your pocket and walk outside.”

  A second later a text pinged Maddy’s phone. She pulled it away to see a picture of Angie with duct tape over her mouth and tears running down her face. She was in her car, a cute little BMW 1 Series convertible, that she adored. The dash clock said 11:18 p.m. That was eight minutes ago. It could be staged, of course. But Maddy didn’t have time to figure it out.

  She twisted the door knob and pulled the door open. Two things happened at once. First, an ear-splitting alarm cut through the night. And second, Calypso appeared out of seemingly nowhere and yanked Maddy out the door, spinning her around and putting her head behind Maddy’s. The barrel of Calypso’s gun jammed into Maddy’s throat.

  Colt appeared a moment later, yelling, “What the fuck, Maddy? I told you not to—”

  He didn’t say anything else because Calypso fired.

  Maddy screamed as he dropped.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Calypso dragged Maddy down the stairs and into the woods, turning her and shoving the pistol into her back. “Go,” she said harshly, yanking Maddy’s phone from her pocket and stuffing it into her own.

  Maddy put one foot in front of the other, unseeing. She sobbed brokenly, the tears coming fast and hard, blurring her vision.

  “Shut up,” Calpyso ordered.

  But Maddy couldn’t stop. It was all her fault. She’d told Angie where to find her. Not precisely where to find her, but somehow Calypso had figured it out. Colt was shot—probably dead—and Kitty was in that house with the blaring alarm and a wide-open door.

  Maddy stumbled and dropped to her knees. Calypso jerked her harshly to her feet. “Move.”

  Maddy thought, for the briefest of moments, that it was over. That it needed to be over. She should just fall and refuse to get up. Then Calypso would kill her and the misery would be over. Because she’d lost Jace, she’d lost her dad and her grandmother, her cat was probably terrified—and Colt. Oh God, Colt. He’d been nice to her. She’d liked him. And she’d caused this to happen.

  His mom, who hated that he let people call him Colt instead of Colton, would never see him again.

  She stumbled again but didn’t fall. Calypso kept pushing her through the woods. And somewhere during the dark journey, instead of giving up, she started to get mad. This woman—this horrible woman—killed people. She’d killed two people at Sokolov’s birthday party. She’d kidnapped Angie, she’d shot Colt, and she was going to shoot Maddy eventually.

  Unless Jace found her. A surge of strength roared through Maddy’s blood, into her brain, her heart and lungs. Jace had promised to protect her. He’d sworn he’d keep her alive. And she believed him. He would find her. Somehow.

  She stumbled again, only this time she reached for the vegetation, ripping some of it out and dropping it. Calypso kept pushing and Maddy kept stomping along like an elephant, hoping to leave a trail of some kind that Jace could follow.

  It was probably hopeless, but she had to focus on that idea. On the idea of him finding her and making Calypso pay.

  They emerged from the woods onto a dirt track where Angie’s car sat with the engine running and the lights off. Calypso yanked open the door and reached for a bag. Maddy’s heart tripped as she spied shoes—but there were feet in those shoes, and Angie moved. She was lying against the driver’s side door in the backseat, her hands and feet bound, her mouth taped.

  “Oh my God, Angie!”

  “Shut up,” Calypso growled, jamming the gun in Maddy’s ribs. For the barest of seconds, she considered trying to take the gun. But her courage failed her. She hadn’t succeeded with Jace back in Russia and she was too uncertain of her skill to try now. What was one self-defense course a couple of years ago against a trained assassin? She hated herself for it, but she also knew it wasn’t just her life at risk. If she failed, Calypso might kill Angie in revenge.

  Angie moaned and Maddy bit her lower lip to keep from sobbing again. “What do you want from me?” she asked.

  Calypso took plastic zip ties from her bag and zipped Maddy’s wrists tightly together. “Get in the car. Front seat.”

  Maddy did as she was told. Then Calypso pulled out Maddy’s phone. She hit the button to wake it up, then shoved it into Maddy’s face until the phone recognized her and unlocked itself.

  Calypso scrolled for a moment. Maddy studied her face in the glow of the light. She was fine-boned, strikingly pretty. She wasn’t as heavy as the maid, nor did she have the short hair the maid had. But a wig could have fixed that, as Jamie had proven today when she’d dressed to impersonate Maddy.

  Calypso’s eyes, when she raised them, were piercingly blue. She smiled. It was familiar somehow. “Ah, here we go. Jace is what he calls himself now. Interesting.”

  Maddy’s blood chilled. This woman knew Jace? He hadn’t said he knew her. Then again, he’d claimed not to know Calypso’s identity at all. “What do you want with him?”

  Calypso’s gaze was hot, wicked. “What do I want? Nothing less than his soul, sweetheart.”

  “Good luck with that,” Maddy said, deciding to pretend like she couldn’t care less about Jace. Wasn’t that the smart thing to do? “He’s a player. One-night stand kind of guy. You might get his attention, but it won’t last.”

  Calypso laughed. “Oh, Maddy, you are delightful. I’m not interested in making him my lover. I’m interested in selling him to the highest bidder. And you’re going to help me do it.”

  “Me?” she croaked.

  Calypso bent close. Then she snapped a picture of Maddy. “Oh yes, you. You’re the bait. The thing he can’t resist. I owe you, Maddy. When I took the job at Sokolov’s party, I had no idea what gift you’d bring me. I’ve been searching for years. I knew he was out there. Hiding. But I could never quite find him. Until you brought him to me.”

  Maddy knew that it wasn’t a good thing Calypso was telling her these things. Talking to her like it didn’t matter, because it meant Maddy would never get a chance to repeat any of it to anyone. But she also wanted answers. “How could you know I’d bring him to you?”

  Calypso was busy tapping on Maddy’s phone. “I didn’t.” She pressed send because Maddy heard the whoosh. “There. Any second now.”

  She slammed the door on Maddy, then walked around and got behind the wheel. She flicked on the lights, popped the car into gear, and started driving. A moment later, Maddy’s ringtone blared.

  Jace’s phone rang. “A door’s been br
eached at the safe house,” Ian said. “The alarm hasn’t been shut down yet.”

  Which meant the breach wasn’t accidental. Jace’s guts twisted tight as panic shot down his spine. “How far away is the response team?”

  “Five minutes. I’m sending them by air.”

  Ian didn’t have to say it, but Jace knew why. In case there were casualties. They’d need to be med-flighted out, if they were lucky. If they weren’t then the site had to be cleaned before the locals figured out what had happened.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Jace growled.

  “I put her in a safe house because you wanted it. She wasn’t supposed to be in danger there.”

  “What the fuck happened?” The panic was twisting higher inside him, threatening to erupt in rash action and bad decisions. He couldn’t let that happen. He had to be cool and methodical. For Maddy. If he stood a chance in hell of getting her back, he had to think this through.

  But what if she’s dead?

  Jesus, no. Please no. He’d said goodbye to her today, fully intending to walk away and never see her again. But if that was a reality? If she was gone and he never could see her again? Never bump into her accidentally on purpose, never see her smile?

  If he couldn’t simply know she was alive in this world so he could continue doing what he did, then he didn’t see the point in existing.

  “Maddy told Angie Turner what town she was in. Not the address, but the town. Angie was upset about something and wanted to come stay with her.”

  “Goddammit.”

  “But Angie never made it to the rendezvous point. Colt called to see if we could track Angie because Maddy was having a fit over it. Brett was on the line with him—the alarm went off and Colt yelled at Maddy. There was a single gunshot—and we’ve heard nothing from Colt since.”

  “Jesus, Ian—” His phone dinged and he pulled it away to glance at the text. Everything inside him went still at the picture of Maddy squinting into the flash.

  Then he read the words. Your life for hers, Nikolai.