The Boss

by Melissa Schroeder

  “Thanks, Simon.”

  He shook his head, his disapproval easy to see. “I beg of you to get another life, MacKenzie.”

  She could argue with him, as she had in the past, but she said the only thing she could.

  “This is the only one I want.”

  Without saying anything else, she slipped out the door behind Vic.

  “What happened?”

  “We were made the moment we came in,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Why the hell aren’t we using coms?”

  “Because the ones we have might have been hacked. We do need to get some more. I should have asked Simon for new ones.”

  He gave a look that left little doubt how he felt about that. Without another word, they made their way down the hall, keeping their backs against the wall.

  They followed Simon’s instructions, but before they could make it to the door, they heard voices down the hall. As the people approached, Vic apparently made a snap decision. She found herself back against the wall, Vic standing in front of her. She knew without instruction just what he was planning. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t done this kind of thing hundreds of times before. Still, she wasn’t prepared for the way her heart fluttered as he stepped closer. She could smell his cologne then…Vic. It was the unique scent of him that had her head spinning and her body heating to the boiling point.

  Without hesitation, he cupped the back of her neck. A second later, he had his mouth on hers, and she was lost. She opened her mouth, eager to have a taste of him. As he slanted his mouth over hers, she rose up, pressing harder against his body. She wanted him, right then. Wanted her flesh against his, needed it in the same way she always needed it. She slipped her hand beneath his jacket and up to his back. She urged him closer, wanting to feel the heat of him against her flesh.

  He did as she asked, leaning closer. The long length of his erection pressed against her belly.

  Yes. This.

  Those were the only two thoughts that ran through her mind. Her nipples were painfully tight, her body humming. Now, this was it. Right there, she wanted him, wanted to surrender to the passion that shimmered beneath Vic’s tough exterior.

  Just as she was skimming her hand down between their bodies so she could unbutton his pants, he tore his mouth away from hers.

  No. Not yet.

  She didn’t open her eyes, but she reached for him.

  “Come on,” he said, grabbing her hand. She opened her eyes and stumbled down the hall behind him.

  Her face heated as she realized what had occurred. She had been completely lost in the moment, and he had been at work. Lord, it was like she was on her first assignment for MI6, losing track of what was actually happening.

  They made their way out to the front of the embassy and walked to where the cars were held. Valet would have been nice, but neither of them liked to be stuck. They’d parked one street over and made it to the car without incident. The Jag they had borrowed sat undisturbed. They both knew it would be safe in this neighborhood, at least for the night. Lots of patrols when the embassy did anything.

  They were driving away before she breathed a sigh of relief.

  “That seemed too easy,” Vic said.

  She nodded and looked behind them. “I don’t see anyone, though.”

  “That’s good, at least. Still surprised Sir Simon didn’t send someone after us.”

  “I have pointed out more than once that he isn’t titled. And why would he send someone after us?”

  “Maybe because he wants to propose to you again.”

  There was a beat of silence. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Little Russian bird told me.”

  She searched her memory, thinking of anyone who might have recognized her. The list was long.

  “I need more intel.”

  He downshifted as he worked his way around a slow sedan.

  “Blonde, short, curvy. Seems to know Simon well.”

  “Oh. Sasha, or at least that is the name I know her by. Yeah, she’s always had a thing for Simon.”

  “And the proposal?”

  She shifted in her seat as he turned down a one-way street. Dammit, she hated that they were going to be stuck in the car for the next half hour. There wasn’t much traffic, but she knew Vic would want to ensure they had not been followed.

  “Mac?”

  She sighed. “We had broken up, and Simon came to me. He wanted to marry. He said it would help his career.”

  “Gee, that was romantic.”

  “Yeah. Well, I turned him down.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  Vic said nothing as they continued to drive through the streets of D.C. She hated the long silence. Normally, it suited her, but she wondered what he thought of the tidbit of information. She chanced a glance in his direction as they drove under a series of streetlights. Nothing. No expression.

  “What?” he growled.

  “I just thought you would have more to say about it.”

  “What do you want me to say?” She opened her mouth to respond, but he didn’t give her the opportunity. “The fact that Sir Simon gathered up the courage to ask you to get married and I never did is enough to piss me off.”

  “I didn’t see it as courage.”

  He came to a stop at a light and looked over at her. “Yeah. Then what do you call it?”

  “I saw it as opportunistic. We weren’t even sleeping together then, but he knew you and I were on the outs.”

  The light turned green, and Vic started them back on their way back to the hotel.

  “So he just looked you up?”

  She shrugged. “I have a feeling my father put him up to it. He always liked Simon.”

  “And you said no.”

  “Why would I even think of marrying him?”

  “You were single.”

  She rolled her eyes. The man was completely obtuse at times.

  “I never saw myself as single, Vic. Well, not until recently.”

  He pulled up the front of the W but didn’t immediately get out for the valet. He turned to her and grabbed her chin. “Tell me.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me why you said no.”

  Damn him. “Because he wasn’t you. Is that what you want to hear?”

  For a long moment, he said nothing. He released her chin and leaned forward. He gave her a quick, hot kiss.

  Then, without another word, he slipped out of the car. He rounded the hood of the car, then opened her door and helped her out. He escorted her through the lobby and to the elevators. Then, once they were alone, when she was about to scream, he finally said something.

  “I’m really freaking happy you didn’t get married.”

  He grabbed her hand and held on to it. It wasn’t poetry, but it was definitely a step in the right direction.

  Chapter Ten

  Never trust any government official. They all have their own goals and will happily stab you in the back to achieve them.

  —Mac Donovan

  The moment she shut the door to her garage, Tessa knew someone was in her house. True, her alarm was intact, and she lived in a low-crime neighborhood. Add in the fact that everyone knew she was an FBI agent, and most folks left her alone. Still, it was that little bit of a sixth sense that made the hairs rise up on the back of her neck. There was a moment of trepidation followed quickly by relief. She knew exactly who it was.

  “Come out, Rock. I don’t have time for games.”

  There was a long moment of silence, and then he slipped out of the pantry. “You ruin all my fun.”

  “That’s me, the fun killer.” It wasn’t as if she didn’t know that people thought of her that way. She didn’t care. Much. She slanted a look at her visitor. Damn, the man got better looking the older he got. Dark blond hair, steel-gray eyes, and dimples when he smiled. The man was a walking, talking wet dream for any heterosexual woman. Nope. She wasn’t going to go there. Not again, and not in front of him, that was f
or sure.

  She shook her head as she stepped out of her shoes. Her feet seemed to sigh in relief even as they throbbed in pain. Why did she wear heels? Because they made her look taller. Her small stature was something she’d dealt with all her life, but it seemed to plague her especially at the FBI. She saw herself as Jodie Foster’s character in The Silence of the Lambs. She always felt like Clarice Starling surrounded in that elevator by the massive bulk of the male FBI agents. Hell, most of the women towered over her. Rock approached her, and she had to lean back to look at him. Damn, she should have left her heels on.

  “Do you have anything for me?” he asked, that little half smile playing about his mouth. Oh, how sweet he looked, but she knew Rock could kill a man with his bare hands—probably had before.

  “A bullet the next time you enter my home without permission.”

  “Mercenary.” He nodded as his smile widened. “I like it.”

  “Nice to be known as an it. And, yes, I do have something for you.” She made her way through the kitchen, grabbed her oversize wineglass, and opened the fridge. “Your girl is in a lot of hot water.”

  “How so?”

  After pulling out a bottle of her favorite Moscato d’Asti, she closed the door by knocking her hip against it. She set the glass on her counter and filled it with a generous amount of wine. She took a long drink.

  “No thanks, I don’t want a glass.”

  She allowed the sweet wine to slide down her throat. It had been a long day, and now, apparently, she had to deal with the sexy ex-spy in her kitchen. She needed all the help she could get. And she needed him gone.

  “You break into my house, I’ll be damned if I’m going to serve you wine.”

  He shrugged and slipped his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Fair enough.”

  “Well, she worked for Ken Blake at the Liberty Group, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Not on their books.”

  “She mentioned something like that.”

  “No, I mean there is no evidence she worked for them anywhere. Even the IRS didn’t have her on file.”

  He frowned. “Not on their books? As in she didn’t exist? Like black ops?”

  “Yeah. In fact, it has a real feel of a black ops operation. But now that some information has come to light, we know Walter George is into some bad stuff, and we now know that she was helping him hide it.”

  “Not willingly.”

  She studied him. Men were always so damned predictable. “Gave you the cute little innocent routine, did she?”

  “Not a routine. Believe me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, all men know when they are being screwed over. Anyway, a lot of the stuff she was involved with was bad. Really bad.”

  “No, we did a background check on her.”

  “As did we.”

  “And we had to do ours on the fly.”

  She nodded. “I’m not supposed to show you this, but truth is, it is better to let you see the hard copies of this than to email it.”

  She pulled out the file they had on Millie Bingham. She handed it over and sipped her wine. She watched him as he scanned the information, enjoying her little moment of voyeurism. Bryan Rocovich was a delicious man to study. She knew he was former military and former CIA. She always knew the little frown he gave her when he realized things weren’t going his way.

  Rock looked up at her. “Holy shit. Is this true?”

  She shrugged and swallowed another sip of wine. “Well, on paper it looks that way.”

  “So Liberty had her working at covering the tracks of some Russian mobsters?”

  “That’s the way it looks. She created a system of computing that made it damned hard for the U.S. government to track. At least, we assume it was her. She wrote some programs in college that were very similar.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean ‘similar?’”

  “The computer geeks tell me it’s easy to find a programmer by their code. There are…crap. What did they call it? Oh, right, strings. They called them strings of code. Sort of like a writer or musician. You hear a lyric or read a passage, and you can sometimes figure out who it is. Same with programmers.”

  “So she wrote the code. It doesn’t mean she was complicit.”

  “No. But it could mean she is involved.”

  He shook his head, and she knew he didn’t want to believe it. The idea that a big, bad spy was some kind of softy for a sweet little hacker irritated Tessa. She didn’t know why, but it made her want to do horrible things to Millie Bingham.

  “Okay, you don’t want to believe it.”

  “Innocent until proven guilty. Plus, if she was working for them, why did they have her stolen by that idiot?”

  “Wyndham?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Did she say she wouldn’t work for them anymore?”

  “No. See, the Denkov folks, the ones George is such good friends with? Well, they weren’t behind the abduction. That was Vlad Mateev.”

  “Vlad?”

  “Hey, I’m just relaying what I found out. Vlad is an up-and-comer in the drug and flesh trade. His forte happens to be third-country nationals. Promises them a better life, then turns them out for tricks.”

  “Sounds like a winner.”

  “He was flying under the radar until some incident in Prague. Not sure what, but many countries are looking at him. And he needs a way to hide his money.”

  “And Millie’s name was dropped into his lap somehow.”

  “Yes.”

  “But abduction?”

  “It might be all that he knows. Vlad is accustomed to finding women, drugging them, and using them. He probably thought it would be a good idea. Easy, quick.”

  “But the NSA heard something about the drop and hired us.”

  “And you broke up the little party. So there you have it.”

  “You don’t think that George put Maatev up to this, do you?”

  “No. Actually, Denkov and Maatev hate each other. They’ve spent the last two years in a war over territory.”

  “Millie would have been a great tool on his side, but if Maatev had her, Denkov could be exposed.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What I don’t get is why didn’t he just offer her money? I mean, if she were a mercenary, she would have just taken the bigger paycheck.”

  “Not sure. Maybe he did.”

  “Hold on.”

  He dialed his phone. “Hey. Ask Millie if she’s had any job offers lately?”

  He was quiet for a second.

  “I don’t care who, just any job offers.”

  He rolled his eyes, then looked at Tessa. “They are arguing. I swear to God.”

  “Are they involved?” That would explain a lot if one of the team was in a relationship with her.

  “No. We got hired for a job, and then I sort of fucked everything up.”

  “And exactly why did you do that?” she asked.

  “Because I saw a drugged-up girl barely old enough to drink about to be sold to someone. I don’t allow things like that to happen.”

  Then his friend was back on the phone. “Okay. Thanks. I’ll check in later.”

  He clicked off his phone. “Yeah, she did have a job offer about a month ago. A headhunter called her. She turned it down.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “They wanted her to move to Russia. She didn’t want to do that because, well, she doesn’t speak Russian. And she liked her job with Liberty.”

  “That explains why they felt they needed to abduct her.”

  “It all seems a little extreme. I mean, they have WikiLeaks and all those folks, right?”

  “Yes, but to have her and everything that’s inside her head…that would be worth an abduction. I just wonder who put them onto her to begin with?”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face, and for the first time, she noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked haggard. Tessa wanted to offer him a room for the night, b
ut that would be the worst move for her career. She was pretty sure Rock was the one who’d shot the FBI agent. The man survived, but the FBI still wanted to put Rock behind bars, if only for a little while.

  “So, that’s all I have. I think you all need to do some more digging on your girl and what she knows.”

  “She didn’t tell us about any of this.”

  Of course Bingham didn’t. She needed Rock’s help. Tessa was pretty sure she would have done the same thing if she were stuck in this situation.

  “We need to find out who first let Makeev know about her. Damn, this case just keeps getting more and more insane with each rock we roll over.”

  “You need to find out just what she was doing at Liberty. It will give you leverage.”

  “Leverage?”

  It was her turn to roll her eyes. “You all are in hot water with the FBI. If you can get something to give them, either from this Bingham or some other source, it might give you some protection.”

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  His hopeful expression along with the sly smile told her what he wanted, and dammit, she couldn’t resist him. “I’ll look around, quietly. You can leave now.”

  He looked at her. “No nightcap for Rock, then?”

  “Nope. Go.”

  “Fine. Call me if you figure it out.”

  She watched him slip through the French doors that led to her backyard, her brain turning over ideas of who to talk to. She had a friend or two who might be able to help her. She hated to think that Rock might just get screwed because of some sob story from a hacker. Tessa had always thought he was smarter than that. Of course, it wasn’t any of her business, but she didn’t like the situation.

  With a sigh, she grabbed the bottle and filled her glass again. With Rock on her mind, she knew sleep would be a long time coming without help.

  …

  “So, that’s it?’ Mac asked as she paced the floor in front of the balcony as she talked to Rock on the phone. The curtains were closed for privacy and safety.

  “For right now.”

  “And she said that if we can get some information, we can possibly work out a deal?”

  “Yeah, but there was no promise.”

  She stopped pacing and rubbed her forehead. The headache that had been brewing was starting to blossom and explode. It was leaving her slightly ill. This whole business wasn’t making any sense.