by Liliana Hart
“We’ve just crossed the border into Venezuela by my calculations,” she said, slowing to a jog. “How much farther is your rendezvous point?”
“About another mile. Keep the sound of water to your immediate left.” He put his hand on her arm before she could take off again. “Wait.”
She stopped dead in her tracks, and Gabe could tell she was trying to hear what he had. They were silent for a few more seconds before the sound came again.
“Shit,” she said. “It’s the new guards. You always did have ears like a bat.”
“What do you have on you?”
“My Sig and a hunting knife. How many do you think there are?”
“No more than a dozen. They’re noisy bastards. And not too fast.” He pulled his own pistol from the small of his back and checked the clip. “I’ll give you a boost.” He replaced his weapon in his pants and laced his fingers together. He arched a brow as she just stared at him.
“I’m really tired of trees.” She blew out a breath and put her foot into his hands. He launched her up so she could reach the lowest branch, and she swung herself up like a monkey.
“Do you have good visibility?” Gabe asked.
“Yeah, I see them. You’ll have to draw them close enough so I’m within range.”
“Try not to hit me by mistake.”
“Oh, it wouldn’t be a mistake,” she said.
Gabe smiled and left her there to go meet trouble head-on. He found cover behind a tree trunk the size of a small car and waited patiently. Heavy footsteps crunched over twigs, and he stuck out his foot as two of them passed by. One of the guards tripped and went sprawling to the ground, and Gabe struck out at the other with a palm to the chest, stopping his heart instantly. He broke the neck of the one who was already down before the man could rise off his knees.
Gabe ignored the steady stream of fire that came from behind him, trusting Grace to not let anyone too close, and he went searching for his next victim. Only a few minutes passed before he stood in the middle of a ring of twelve guards—all of them dead. None of them had had a chance to fire a shot.
Grace was waiting for him on the ground when he caught up to where he’d left her. They both picked up their pace and ran the last mile in silence. They slowed as they came to a winding dirt road with deeply rutted tire tracks, making footing tricky. Less than a minute later, a forest-green Humvee coated with a thick layer of dust pulled up beside them. Gabe opened the back door and Grace slid across the hot leather seat.
The driver turned and looked at Gabe, waiting for instructions. Logan Grey had worked with him on other missions. He was a quiet man, tall and sinewy with muscle. He wore his dark blond hair long, not as a fashion statement, but to help cover the terrible scars on the back of his neck. Logan was former MI6, but an almost fatal accident had gained him retirement before he was ready. Gabe hadn’t hesitated at snatching Logan up to join the team. No one knew explosives better than Logan Grey.
“Get us out, and in a hurry,” Gabe said. Logan glanced once at Grace and then nodded.
Gabe closed the window that divided the front and back seat so he and Grace had complete privacy.
“Who’s your friend?” Grace asked.
“Logan Grey. Don’t worry. He’s heard all about you and still agreed to help me find you.”
“I’m sure he’s a real stand-up guy.”
“He’ll grow on you. So what do you think? This was just like old times. We always made a hell of a team.”
“Tell me what you want, and then let me go. I’ve got a schedule to keep.”
“You don’t have another job lined up once you deliver the flash drive to the South Koreans. Looks like you’re at loose ends.” Gabe watched for a reaction closely, but she showed no surprise that he’d been keeping up with her movements. She just waited him out with silence and a hard look, and he decided to give in to the unspoken standoff just this once.
“I’ve left the CIA,” he told her.
“I heard. Congratulations. Let me go.”
Gabe smiled and stretched out across the seat, crowding her with the length of his legs, but she didn’t budge an inch. “Did you hear I’d joined the private sector and opened my own agency?”
She laughed, low and sexy, and the smoky sound swirled around him until he was dizzy with desire. “So, good boy Gabriel Brennan has decided to become a bad boy and go rogue. I assume the agency is displeased by your decision?”
“Not at all. They know when something is out of their control. My agency is privately funded. Even the CIA recognizes the benefits unknown money can buy. Government agencies are still hampered by rules. Sometimes there are jobs where the rules need to be broken. That’s when they call me.”
“Well, bully for you. You always did manage to get what you wanted.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth, and you know it,” he said quietly. Gabe waited patiently for her to make eye contact. It didn’t take her long. She’d never been a coward.
“I don’t know anything about you, Gabe. I never did. Our life was a lie.”
“How long are you going to pretend she’s not sitting here between us?”
“Don’t mention her!” The quiver in her voice was quickly controlled. “I’ll get out of this car and disappear off the face of the planet. If you want me to stay, then the past stays in the past. It’s nonnegotiable.”
“Fine. Whatever you say.”
The SUV slowed to a stop, and Gabe pushed the door open, not waiting to see if she’d follow. It was a stupid idea to think he could fix things—to heal the wounds that had been bleeding for the last two years.
Gabe’s Gulfstream sat ready for takeoff on the hard-packed dirt the small Venezuelan city called an airport. He went up the stairs and then turned to face Grace, sure she’d still be in the car. But she stood at the bottom of the steps, her face carefully blank.
“You can either come with me or you can leave. The choice is yours,” Gabe said without emotion, tossing her the flash drive.
She caught it one handed and stared at him, studying him, trying to read every angle of the situation as she’d been trained to do at the agency. She finally nodded and started up the steps. “I’ll come.”
Gabe let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and nodded before boarding the plane. He had a feeling that before this job was over, she’d have one more reason to hate him.
CHAPTER TWO
The Gulfstream was a luxury Gabe was glad he didn’t have to do without. The interior was set up like an apartment—a living area, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom—and was comfortably decorated in muted shades of gray and navy blue. He’d spent more time in the comfortable space the last two years than he had in his actual apartment. International terrorism and intelligence had kept him busy, and working constantly helped him to forget Grace. At least he liked to think it did.
Logan climbed aboard, ignoring both of them, and immediately went to seat himself in the cockpit. A smile twitched at Gabe’s lips. Logan was a man of few words.
Grace had already fastened her seat belt by the time Gabe took his own place across from her. She stared out the window as they taxied before takeoff, doing her damnedest to ignore him. A table sat between them, but it might as well have been a brick wall.
“Grace,” Gabe said softly. Her gaze met his—her eyes filled with pain and coldness—and he decided she needed no less than complete honesty from him. “I want you to join my team.” She opened her mouth to say something, but he hurried on before she could deny him. “You’re the best there is, and I only want top agents working with me. I need you. Even if it’s just for this one mission, I need you. It’s important. More important than anything we’ve done before.”
She was the best sniper he’d ever known. Her eyes could focus on a target from a thousand yards and she was brilliant enough to calculate terrain and angles in her head in a matter of seconds before taking the fatal shot. She never missed. And they’d worked well togeth
er once. She’d saved his life and the lives of others on more than one occasion.
“If I agree, I want something in return.” She gripped the armrest of her seat tightly as the nose of the plane tipped up and then left the safety of solid ground behind. She’d always hated flying. A weakness he knew she despised in herself.
“I’ve already told you I’d double what you’re getting for the jobs you’re doing now. I know what you’ve been doing with the money, Grace, and how important it is to you. I’ll give you what you need.”
“I won’t need the money anymore if I work for you. I want something else.”
He looked at her warily, a feeling of dread curling in his stomach. He knew what she was going to ask before the words left her mouth.
“I want your help and your resources hunting down Kamir Tussad. I want his head on a platter. Take it or leave it.”
The hatred in her eyes knifed through him, but he understood it. Gabe stared at her intently, all the impotent rage he’d kept bottled inside at the terrorist’s name threatening to claw its way out and slash him to ribbons. He couldn’t afford to be ruled by anger as she was. Anger made him less than useless. They were fire and ice, and cold logic was the only thing that worked for him. He knew if he wanted to get her on his team then he had to agree to her demand. And then they’d face the past. Together.
“Agreed. But you’ll not take any side jobs while you’re working for me. My company has an international reputation. A good one.”
“Fine. Tell me about the job.”
Gabe handed her a thick file folder. “Take a look and tell me what you see.”
He waited patiently while Grace flipped through pictures and let out a long, low whistle. “It’s a clean job,” she finally said. “Too clean. Land this smooth doesn’t occur naturally. What was in these places before they were leveled?”
“Whole communities. Houses, people, animals, children. You name it. Six tribes, sparsely populated by traditional standards, fallen off the face of the earth. South America, Central Mexico, Africa, and Australia. The fingerprint is the same at each place.”
She raised a brow but didn’t say anything else as she looked through the rest of the documentation. She held up a picture of a couple, both with pale blonde hair and the kind of creases in their faces that said they spent a lot of time smiling. “Who are they?”
“John and Esther Norris. Missionaries with a Tuareg Tribe in Africa. They came back to the states because she had pregnancy complications four months ago. They arrived back with the Tuareg last week and were greeted with this.” He pointed to the aerial picture that showed nothing more than a flat square of smooth dirt. “The U.S. Embassy told the Norris’s they’d check into it.”
“Which means they’ve decided to ignore it for some reason.”
“You got it.”
“Which is where you come in, I assume. Who hired you?”
“Frank Bennett.” Deputy Director Frank Bennett had been a mentor to Gabe for fifteen of his sixteen years at the CIA.
“Very funny, Gabe. Frank Bennett is dead. Even I heard that news, and I was in a third world country with very limited communications at the time.”
“He’s dead because he had information he wasn’t supposed to have.”
“And now you have it?” Grace asked, holding up the file in question.
“That’s part of it. You haven’t seen the rest yet.” Gabe unbuckled his seatbelt and went to the fridge to grab a couple of waters. He handed one to Grace and sat back down. “Are you curious enough to stay on board?”
“You knew I would be.” Grace rotated her neck and used her water to wet a cloth napkin. She wiped the grime from her face and neck, and the action was unguarded for only a split second, but it was long enough for Gabe to see a glimpse of the vulnerability she kept hidden.
“Good. Go take a shower, and feel free to use whatever is in the closet. Everything you need is on board. We’ll have plenty of time for me to tell you the rest on the way to London.”
“Why the hell are we going to London?”
“Because that’s where The Collective headquarters is.”
“The Collective?”
“Your new employer. The rest of the team will be waiting for us there.” He held up a hand before she could argue. “Yes, a team. A five-man unit all hand selected. The others have been with me awhile. It took some time to track you down. Be nice. You’re the new guy.”
“Great,” she said, standing. “We’ll be one big, happy family.”
Grace went into the small bathroom and he heard the shower turn on. He knew exactly what she looked like naked, and the thought of her pale, wet body made him ache with desire. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was tempting fate in more ways than one. Grace was a different person than she’d been two years ago—harder—colder—but he loved her still.
He just had to prove it to her. And pray to God that she might forgive him.
CHAPTER THREE
London, England
Gabe was exhausted—his thirty-eight years felt closer to a hundred—but at least his life wasn’t tied to the CIA any longer. He was free. Of course, the reason he no longer worked for the CIA was that his life had turned to shit, so he wasn’t sure the levels of bad canceled each other out in the long run. Shit was still shit, no matter how you labeled it.
If his cover hadn’t been blown two years ago, he’d still be accepting missions. And he knew with absolute certainty he’d be dead. He was used up. A man could only live that way so long before he lost his soul or his life. He’d come close to losing both.
But now there was Grace.
He spent the flight back to London trying to keep his mind focused on anything but her, but it was impossible when he could smell the scent of his soap on her skin teasing his already-primed senses. All he wanted to do was sink into her wet heat and chase away the memories of the last two years with every thrust. He’d be lucky if she didn’t stab him in the back in the middle of his orgasm.
He shook his head at his foolish fantasies and got up to check on her, only to find her dead to the world in his bed—her hair lying like wet ropes against her pale skin and her body restless even in sleep. She wore a pair of his sweats that swallowed her whole, and her feet were bare and delicate.
Gabe covered her with a blanket and touched the curve of her cheek with his fingers. She curled into his hand, nuzzling against him. He couldn’t stop the pain that clutched his heart as he remembered how their daughter had always done the same thing. He turned and walked away before he could do something stupid like get in bed beside her and just hold her.
Gabe took his own shower and changed into black cargo pants and a black T-shirt. He spent the rest of the flight buried in work and keeping his personal life locked away. And when Grace woke a few hours later—so they could refuel the plane and their stomachs—her hair was rebraided, she was dressed in the black jeans and green silk blouse he’d put in the closet for her, and she sat across from him without uttering a word, content to pass the time with a book she’d found on his desk.
It was dusk when they left Heathrow. A gloomy drizzle settled over the city and gleamed in the streetlights like dirty diamonds. Logan handled the black Mercedes with ease, weaving in and out of the London streets with familiarity. Gabe sat with Grace in the backseat, answering questions as she read through the files again.
“We’ve got company, boss,” Logan said, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror. “They’re trained. Two cars—one black, one tan—trading off positions since we left the airport.”
“Open the screen,” Gabe said and turned to stare at Grace. “Who have you been pissing off lately?”
“This tail isn’t for me. I’ve been off the grid for two years.”
“Yeah, but I was able to find you.”
“Fine, maybe they’re here for me. Pull over and I’ll ask them nicely before I put a bullet between their eyes.”
“You’ve always been a charmer, Gr
ace.”
“If shooting them is out, maybe you should ask yourself if anyone knows Frank Bennett sent you this information.” She held up the file in question. “There are obviously leaks in Frank’s office, or he wouldn’t be dead.”
Gabe grunted in agreement and waited while Logan flipped a switch on the dashboard. A 6 x 6 television screen came into view, showing a full view of the traffic behind them.
“Do you want me to lose them?”
“Not yet. Let’s see if we can get an identification. Slow down a little.”
Logan did as he was told while Gabe opened his satellite phone and pressed a number on speed dial. He switched on speakerphone and kept his eyes on the screen as it rang. The voice that answered was amused. “This is Dragon at command. Looks like you brought back trouble, Ghost. I’ve been watching the drama unfold from my laptop.”
“Do you have a visual?” Gabe asked.
“I’ve got a partial face of the driver of a black Audi. The windows are tinted, so that might delay things a bit until I can get the image cleaned up. I’ll run it through the system and see if we get lucky first, though. The plates are bogus.”
“What about the second vehicle?”
“I don’t see the secondary vehicle. Are you sure there’s another?”
“We’re coming up to an exit off the motorway,” Logan said. “They’ll switch places.”
The inside of the car was tense with silence as they all watched the black sedan take the next exit.
“I still don’t have a visual on the replacement vehicle,” Dragon said.
“He’ll be there,” Logan growled. “I know how to spot a tail, boy.”
“Settle down, Grim Reaper,” Dragon said. “You’re too uptight. When was the last time you got laid?”
“I’ve got a visual,” Gabe said before his two agents could get into an argument. “Tan sedan at five o’clock.”
“Hot damn. I guess Grim Reaper really does know what he’s talking about.”
“Dragon, shut up before Logan kills you,” Gabe said, rolling his eyes.
