by Liliana Hart
The quick knock on the door gave her enough time to blank any emotions from her face.
“What’s the…” Gabe didn’t finish his sentence, and the look on his face was enough to make the woman in her purr with pride. He circled his finger, and she obligingly turned around.
“Jesus Christ, woman. I can’t let you go out in public like that.” He took a step toward her with his hands reaching out to her before he caught himself. “I’ve seen every inch of your body, and I had no idea you had curves like that.”
“I’m just following orders, sir. You told me to wear the green silk. But I do have a small problem as to where I should put my weapons. This dress is so tight that I can’t even wear underwear, much less a thigh holster.”
Gabe’s eyes darkened with desire, and he started toward her with predatory steps. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her nipples were sensitive against the silk as they hardened. She stood her ground as he closed in on her and moaned as his calloused hands touched her thigh just where flesh and fabric met.
He skimmed his fingers over her hips, across the dip of her stomach, and along the mounds of her breasts before tangling his fingers in her braid, all the while never breaking eye contact with her. God, he had such beautiful eyes—streaks of silver shot through deep blue. She was powerless to look away.
“You should wear it down.” He tugged at the end of the braid and ran his fingers through it until it hung in curls over her shoulders. He rubbed the ends between his fingers. “It’s like fire, but cool to the touch.”
She waited for the animal she saw inside of him to take control, for him to press her back against the wall and take her with all the want and desire that vibrated off his body. But just as his lips skimmed across hers, no more than a taste, the shutters came down over his eyes, and his face was a hard mask of determination.
The job came first. Just like always.
“This is going to be up close and personal,” he said. “We need Standridge alive enough to talk for a while. We’ve got to destroy his research and test formulas. Just get us inside his home, and we’ll decide where to go from there.”
“He can’t be left alive, Gabe.”
“I know. But I figure after one look at you in that dress, he’ll drop dead of a heart attack.”
“That would be the easiest way. Blood stains are hell to get out of silk.”
* * *
Grace had never been drunk in her life. She’d never liked the idea of being completely out of control. But she’d seen her fair share of fools stumbling around, so she figured she could act the part sufficiently enough.
She gathered her bag and the half-full champagne bottle close and rang the doorbell at Allen Standridge’s Back Bay home. It was a couple of minutes before she heard the shuffle of feet and felt his gaze as he looked at her through the peephole. She took a quick slug of champagne, wobbled unevenly on her heels, and rang the doorbell several times again.
The door opened slowly, and Grace got her first look at Dr. Allen Standridge. He was no prize, that was for damn sure, but she played her part to perfection.
“Ollie, baby,” she crooned, throwing her arms around his considerable bulk. She swallowed the gag at his stench and turned it into a hiccup instead. “Thanks for inviting me. It’s so nice to finally meet you. Awesome house. Do you have a pool?”
Grace left him at the door with his mouth hanging open and stumbled inside. The place was cluttered with papers and empty coffee cups. Clothes hung haphazardly over the furniture, and empty potato chip bags were stuffed into the pocket on the side of his recliner.
“Where is everybody? This isn’t much of a party.”
“Wh…who’s Ollie?” Standridge finally stuttered out. “I think you’ve got the wrong house, lady.”
“Nope, I wrote it down. Where’d I put it?” She smiled drunkenly and clunked her bag down on the table, where she could get to her gun easily, and then fished down the front of her dress for the tiny scrap of paper hidden there. Standridge swallowed audibly as her fingers dipped inside her cleavage. God, men were so easy.
“Here it is.” Grace waved the little piece of paper under his nose and intentionally dropped it to the ground. “Oops! Let me get that, honey.” She grabbed hold of his arm and slithered down to the floor to pick it up. She’d be damned if she was going to bend over and let her ass hang out.
She did her best to entice him without having to touch him too much. Gabe was going to owe her big for this. Standridge’s hands shook as he took the paper from her. He couldn’t take his eyes off her cleavage and was barely able to unfold it.
He glanced at the paper. “Hmm, this is the right address.” He licked his lips nervously. “But as you can see, I’m not having a party tonight.”
“Awww.” The whine in her voice was starting to grate on her nerves. She ran her fingers up over his shoulder and mussed his hair. “My friends must have written it down wrong. But I have a better idea.”
“You do?”
“You look like a fun guy, Ollie.”
“A…Allen. My name’s Allen,” he said in a rush of Frito breath that made her want to recoil.
“Allen is a very sexy name.” She grabbed him by both arms and led him into the house, trying not to trip over her feet in the ridiculous shoes. “What do you say we have our own party? Just the two of us?”
She took another swig from the champagne bottle and then handed it to him. His eyes were glazed with lust, and he was hers to do with as she pleased.
“Just the two of us?” he parroted. “Is this a joke? Did Kimball put you up to this?”
“Now, Allen, you’re going to hurt my feelings.” She pouted prettily and pushed him back into one of his dining room chairs. It was made of sturdy oak and had armrests. It was exactly what she needed. “Do I look like a joke to you?”
He landed with an oomph, and his face was practically buried in her cleavage. “N…no. No joke. Our own party.”
“Do you know what my favorite game is to play at a party?” Grace asked, reaching for her bag and digging around inside. She pulled out a black scarf slowly and ran it across Standridge’s overheated flesh. He was panting like a racehorse, and Grace figured she’d better tone it down a bit before he really did keel over from a heart attack. He was incapable of speech at this point. Sweat beaded on his upper lip, and his face was flushed an unhealthy shade of red.
“Have you ever been tied up, Allen?”
He shook his head no and watched, eyes mesmerized, as she tied his wrist to the arm of the chair. She took another scarf out of her bag and did the same to his other wrist.
“Do you know how hot it makes me to have someone completely at my mercy?” His breath turned into a wheeze as she knelt at his feet and tied each ankle to the chair leg. She stood up and took one final scarf from her bag. “What about you, Allen? How hot does it make you to know that I can do whatever I want to you?”
Grace trailed the scarf over his shoulder as she walked behind him. Her mouth grimaced in irritation as she pulled the scarf over his eyes and noticed his fat head almost made tying it impossible.
“I c—c—c…can’t see.” The panic was ripe in his voice, but Grace knew he couldn’t break the bonds.
“No, you can’t,” she whispered against his ear. “But everything you feel will be enhanced. Just relax, Allen. You’re in good hands. Are you ready to get started?”
“Yesss.”
Grace kicked her shoes off and went to the kitchen door where Gabe waited. He rolled his eyes at her as he slipped past her and made his way over to Allen Standridge.
“Hello? Hello?” Standridge called out. “Are you still here?”
Gabe kicked out his foot and pushed the chair over. All three hundred pounds of Allen Standridge went straight back and landed like a ton of bricks on the kitchen floor. The air went out of him with a whooft, and he lay so still Grace was afraid he might be dead after all.
“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty,” Gabe said,
pulling off the blindfold and smacking him a couple of times on the cheek. “Let’s have a conversation.”
“My back. I think my back is broken.” Tears streaked his face, and Grace shook her head at the pitiful sight he made. She grabbed her Sig from her bag and dug around inside for the silencer. She screwed it on slowly and went to stand on the other side of the weeping man.
“Come on, Dr. Standridge. Let’s be a big boy about this,” Gabe said.
“Who are you?” He looked back and forth between Gabe and Grace, obviously confused.
“Seriously? Are you really so dumb as to think a woman like her would want you? Damn, and I thought you were supposed to be brilliant.”
“I don’t have any money. You can look. Take whatever you want.”
“I will, thanks. Let’s talk about The Passover Project.”
Standridge’s eyes grew big and round in their sockets. The scent of fear wafted from his skin along with the urine that ran down his leg and soaked his clothes.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Standridge closed his eyes, and Grace couldn’t tell what prayer he was muttering under his breath.
Gabe let his fist fly into Standridge’s stomach with a meaty thwap, and Standridge’s crying turned to all-out sobbing. Gabe grabbed the doctor’s face and held it still between his hands.
“Open your eyes and look at me,” Gabe ordered. Standridge didn’t have any choice but to obey. “You’re not a nice man, Dr. Standridge. And if you don’t tell me what I want to know, then I’m going to kill you. The world will be a better place without you. So let’s try this again. I’m going to ask questions, and you’re going to answer.”
“No, I won’t talk. I’m dead either way.”
“You’re right. Looks like you’re pretty smart after all. So let’s cut the bullshit. Are The Passover Project files here or at your lab?”
Standridge stayed silent, and Grace’s estimation of the man went up a notch. Gabe was a scary son of a bitch.
“You can either die easy or die hard. The choice is up to you.” Gabe grabbed the chair by each arm and lifted it back into a sitting position. Grace appreciated the sight of muscles and the impressive show of strength. Gabe pulled the spare 9mm Ruger from his ankle holster and checked the clip. He pulled a silencer out of his jacket pocket and screwed it on. Grace moved to stand behind Gabe so she was out of the blood spatter range.
“You’ve got a lot of extra fat on you, Dr. Standridge. There are plenty of places I can shoot that won’t come near any major organs. You ever been shot?”
Standridge shook his head no, his eyes wide as he stared down the barrel of the gun.
“It hurts like a bitch. Like liquid fire is flowing in your blood and your flesh is being stabbed with a hot iron poker.”
Standridge’s pasty complexion paled even further.
“Where are the files?”
Dr. Standridge took a shaky breath and swallowed. “Most of them are at the lab. I bring what I need home with me every evening.”
“Good. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Where do you put them once you get here?”
“Everything I have is on my desk. Just take it and leave.”
Gabe barely took the time to aim as he pulled the trigger. The smell of cordite and a blood-curdling scream filled the air. Blood welled from a tiny hole in Standridge’s right calf.
“Don’t lie to me, Doctor. I’m not a fool. There’s no way you’d take the chance of anyone discovering what you were working on. I’ll bet as soon as my associate rang your doorbell you put all of your top secret papers in a safe. Tell me where it is, or you’ll have a matching bullet in your other leg.”
Standridge leaned to the side of the chair as far as he could and vomited on the floor. His head hung down on his chest for several minutes before he answered.
“There’s a safe behind the mirror over the fireplace.”
Grace moved quickly and lifted the mirror from the wall. A thick metal door, no bigger than a foot long and wide, sat behind it.
“What’s the combination?” she asked.
“Even if you steal all of my research, you won’t be able to recreate The Passover Project,” Standridge said. “There’s not another scientist in the world who has the genius to restore it to its original form. If the price is right, I’ll finish it for you.”
The wheedling sound of his voice was getting on Grace’s nerves. She was an assassin, for God’s sake. She’d killed some of the most terrible people in the world. But here she was, stuck with a man who was a combination of Boris Karloff and Baby Huey. It was degrading.
“Nice try, doc,” Grace said. “You know as well as I do that you’re not the only one who is capable of recreating the formula. The list is short, but it still exists.”
“And we might have forgotten to mention something at first acquaintance,” Gabe said. “We’re not stealing anything from you. We’re the good guys. The Passover Project isn’t leaving this room. If you think for a second that your life is worth more than the safety of the rest of the world, then you’re completely out of your mind.”
“What’s the combination?” Grace asked again, looking at Standridge. “This is your chance to do something right for once.” Rivulets of sweat beaded across his face and snaked into the crevices on his jowls and neck.
Standridge was quiet too long, and Gabe raised the Ruger and pointed it at his other leg.
“No, don’t!” Standridge screamed. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you.” Gabe put the gun down and waited. “S…seventeen to the left. Three to the right. Six to the left. Twenty-eight to the right.”
The safe door opened on well-oiled hinges. “Looks like we have a winner,” Grace said, flipping though the thick stack of papers inside. “There’s a lot of cash in here, doc. What were you planning to do with all that money?”
He didn’t answer, and Grace didn’t press him for one. She shoved the papers back inside the safe and left the door open as she went back to her bag. She jiggled the box of matches to make sure Standridge was watching and swiped the match head against the rough surface on the box. Sulfur and smoke permeated the air, and she flicked it onto the stack of papers and cash and watched as the flame took hold.
“No! Are you insane? Do you even know what The Passover Project is capable of?”
“Oh, we know,” Grace said. “It’s why we’re here.”
“He’s all yours,” Gabe said.
Grace barely spared a glance at Gabe as he pulled the charges out of her bag and dispersed them throughout the house. Her eyes were all for Standridge.
She picked up her Sig, the cold steel comfortable in her hand. “You know, Allen. It never would have worked out between us.” She pulled the trigger and put a bullet right between Allen Standridge’s eyes.
“Let’s ride,” Gabe said.
Grace looked at her shoes on the floor and decided to leave them there. They deserved to be reduced to ashes. She grabbed her bag and followed Gabe out the back door to the black Audi he had hidden down the block. They got inside the car and were just pulling away from the curb when the force from the explosion shook the ground beneath them.
Neither of them looked back.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Grace pulled a black duffel bag from the backseat into her lap and took out a change of clothes. She unbuttoned the halter from behind her neck and peeled the dress down her body.
“Good thing there’s no oncoming traffic. I’d hate for some middle-aged stockbroker to run off the road at the sight of your breasts.”
Grace snorted out a laugh as she pulled on black cargo pants. “I hate to break it to you, but breasts like mine are a dime a dozen.”
“Not true. They’re the finest breasts I’ve ever seen.” He reached over and cupped one in his palm before she could slip the black T-shirt over her head.
Her breath caught as the heat from his hands sent shivers up her spine, but she shifted out of his grasp and turned her attention to putting on her
boots.
“Did Ethan send you the blueprints for Standridge’s lab?”
A battalion of fire trucks and police cars passed by them in a blur of blue and red flashing lights. Grace watched them in her side-view mirror while she braided her hair.
“Yeah. The security system isn’t registered with any particular company, so I’ll have to see what we’re dealing with once we get there. We should have plenty of time to get things done. It’ll take awhile for the authorities to go through all the legal channels and see that the company that owns Standridge’s house also owns the building where his lab is.”
Gabe took a smooth right off Harvard Street onto Trowbridge and looked for a decent place to park the car. Things would be a little trickier in this neighborhood. The buildings were closer together, and more people roamed the streets since it was so close to the college.
He was in luck. An apartment complex sat to one side of Standridge’s building, and a pizza place sat on the other. Both of the parking lots were packed with cars. Gabe pulled his car into the apartment building complex and parked in the last row. The dense groupings of trees that could be found on every street divided the lots and provided ample cover.
“How do you want to approach?” Grace asked.
“I don’t suppose I could get you to stay here and cover me, could I? I’ll be in and out in ten minutes.”
“Like hell, Gabe. Don’t try to keep me out of the loop. I’m fine and I’m functioning.”
He gave her a long, studying look, but she made sure her emotions were tucked deeply away. “Fine. Let’s go.” He grabbed a windbreaker from the backseat and pulled it on so his weapons didn’t show, and she caught the second one he tossed in her direction. She pulled her black toboggan on to cover her hair and tucked away the stray wisps. Gabe grabbed his backpack and walked in the opposite direction of Standridge’s building.
She followed him into the trees and behind the apartment complex, where a narrow alley housed dumpsters and empty boxes. It dipped lower in the middle for drainage and was cracked and uneven in several places. They stopped when they reached the back entrance to the lab.
