by Kylie Brant
With her index finger, she traced the pattern on the material. "Now he had all three of us under his power, and we were each used to control the others. Displeasing him meant that one of the three would be punished." Her lips stretched in a humorless smile. "He was big on punishment."
"Did he hurt you?"
It wasn't his words that struck her, but the lethal tone with which he uttered them. She blinked, shook off the haze of memory. There was menace in his expression and it took a moment to realize it was on her behalf. And another moment for a ribbon of warmth to unfurl within her, melting a bit of the ice that had lodged there. "My mother demeaned herself regularly to keep that from happening." And she'd accepted that, without ever managing to shake off the accompanying guilt.
"They went out one night, I'm not sure where. He enjoyed showing her off in public. He must have made an excuse, pretended to come back looking for something…" Not by so much as a quiver did her voice betray the revulsion that snaked down her spine at the memory. "Luckily, my mother didn't trust him. She followed him back to the building and came in just in time to keep him from raping me." In time to see the bruises on her face, and the torn clothing. In time to find him on top of her, shoving her legs apart and loosening his pants…
"She knocked him off me and then he went after her. When she screamed at me to run, I did." Even shocked, frightened out of her mind, she knew she'd never make it past his people at the doors. So she'd gone to the balcony, climbed up to the roof and jumped. Fueled by fear and a deep-seated rage, she'd kept leaping from one rooftop to the other. When she'd gone down to the street she'd been several buildings away and taken her chance to run. "I never saw my mother again. I was fourteen."
"Where'd you go? What did you do?"
She let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "First I went to the sanitarium where my grandmother was being held. With a little imagination, it was astonishingly easy to whisk her out of there one night. It took several days for the medication to wear off, so she was thinking clearly. We stayed in homeless shelters for a while. Then we started to plan a way to get my mother away from him."
Restless, she was driven to move, to pace the same area he'd prowled earlier that day. "We knew we couldn't depend on the police. He was a powerful man, even back then, and what kind of credibility would a teenager and a woman declared incompetent have? It was a shock to discover that we had no resources to speak of. He must have forged her name, because somehow he'd managed to sell my grandmother's home in America, and liquidate her assets. So we were homeless, penniless and on the run. He had men looking for us, and we weren't necessarily to be delivered to him alive. So we went into hiding.
"Grandmother had been active during the war in the French Resistance. She contacted a man she'd known then. He'd expanded a bit on the skills he'd acquired stealing information from the Germans." The thought of Jacques brought a bit of warmth seeping into her heart. "He bribed one of the servants and found that my mother hadn't been seen since the day after I left."
"And you suspected Oppenheimer had killed her."
"I know he did," she said flatly. She'd hung on to hope far longer than was reasonable, but there had come a time when she'd been forced to accept the inevitable. She'd carry the grief for her lifetime. "My mother and I had talked about escape often enough. We'd planned where to meet if we got split up. We had someone covering that spot for more than a year after she disappeared. She never came, which meant she couldn't come."
"And you began to plot your revenge," he said quietly.
"We stayed with Grandmother's friend until we could afford another place. He arranged for our new identities and became my mentor. I was sixteen when I pulled my first job alone." The memory of lifting that small but priceless Dali from a museum in Brussels still gave her a glow, dissipating some of the sorrow. She turned on her heel, paced across the room again. "The money from its sale bought us a home. And the money from the next theft bought us the specs and blueprints of one of Oppenheimer's corporations."
"Juliette." He caught her hand when she would have passed by him and held it until she met his gaze. The sympathy she saw there had a hard ball knotting in her throat. "God knows, you have reason to hate him, probably more than most. But you've made him pay, over and over through the years. Let it be enough."
"It's not enough!" She snatched her hand from him and curled the fingers tightly enough to have the nails biting into her palm. "It won't be enough until he's lost everything that means something to him. Until he knows what it's like to have nothing … no home, no reputation, no loved ones. And then I'll come forward and make sure he realizes who took all those things from him. And why." The speech had her shaking with determination. That vow had kept her sane for a decade. And she wasn't going to let anyone stand in the way of seeing it through. Not even Sam Tremaine.
"That's what you're planning? To confront him and rub his face in what you've done?" Disbelief was in his voice, along with something that sounded suspiciously like fear. She dismissed the thought as soon as it occurred. She'd never seen Sam display fear, or any emotion remotely close to it. It was ridiculous to think he'd feel it on her behalf.
"I like to think I'll have a bit more finesse than that, but yes, in the end I will confront him. That's why I need a little more time." This was the most important part of the conversation, the reason she'd stripped her soul bare for him in a way she'd done for no other. "He gets married in two months. Surely…"
"No." His tone brooked no opposition. "He's not going to be allowed to make one more sale. We'll be moving on him immediately. Give it up, Juliette, and be damn glad he was taken down before you could complete this death wish of yours. My God, he'd kill you! You have to know that."
"He'll try." She accepted that risk, as she did all others. "But he won't be able to afford to, at least not at first. The copies I've made of his business records in his various legitimate headquarters will ruin him if they make their way to his rivals' hands." And she'd never quite rid herself of the pang of disappointment that she wouldn't be bringing about his ruination in just that way. To shatter his life on the eve of his wedding and leave him with nothing. But a thief had to be flexible and practical. Sam was right about one thing—it would be enough that the man was brought down.
As long as she got a shot at him first.
"He'll have to play along at first." She lifted a shoulder. "Once he had what he wanted, of course, he'd order my death."
Sam surged to his feet, grasped her upper arms and gave her an ungentle shake. "Are you even listening to yourself?" he demanded, his face shoved close to hers. "Or are you so wrapped up in your damn revenge that you never cared that this plan you're so hell-bent on would be a sure way to wind up dead?"
Tossing her head back she met his gaze squarely. "What would you have done in my place?" She knew the question had hit its mark when his expression stilled, his grasp loosened. "If someone you loved was threatened, killed, what would you do to protect them? To avenge them?"
The moment stretched, silence thrumming with emotion. He didn't answer. He didn't need to. She'd seen her answer in the mask of savagery that had flashed across his face. Sam was a warrior, for all his surface civility. She'd witnessed his commitment to his family. He'd do the same as she, or more, to protect one of them.
She played on that emotion now, certain it was her best hope of convincing him. "If your brother hadn't made it, wouldn't you want a piece of the man responsible for putting those bullets in him? Wouldn't you hunt him down, take your revenge one slice at a time, and make sure he knew why he was suffering? That's all I'm asking, Sam. Give me just a little time to finish this with Oppenheimer, and then you can have him." His hard expression was impossible to read. Desperation rose, and she pressed on. "What would it hurt? You get what you want, Oppenheimer behind bars. And I get what I want."
"What's that, a body bag?" He released her with a suddenness that had her stumbling backward. Reaching for his Scotch, he d
rained the glass, then replaced it on the table with barely restrained violence. "Forget it. You're not thinking clearly.
You've let your hatred of the man blind you to the danger. I'm not going to allow you to have anything further to do with him."
His words were the surest way to torch her temper. "You're not going to allow? I've got news for you, Tremaine, your hold on me is over. I played the game your way, and now you're going to live up to your end of things. Once you destroy the file on me, you can go back to whatever it is you do. I'm no longer any concern of yours, remember? What I do now is my business."
"It's my business if your future plans threaten ours." He turned away, jammed his hands in his pockets. "I have every intention of keeping my word. Just not quite yet."
There was a sound which she first attributed to fury ringing in her ears. It took a moment longer to realize his phone was ringing again. The one that had brought him word of his brother. When he turned to retrieve it, she whirled away, blood pumping with impotent fury. It couldn't end like this, before Oppenheimer knew just who had deprived him of his most prized possessions. Before he saw her, realized that his monstrous actions of the past hadn't gone unpunished. Thoughts of that moment had driven her for ten years. She'd often imagined they were the one thing that gave her grandmother the strength to fight her weakened heart. Despite what the U.S. government had in store for the man, he wouldn't be held accountable for her mother's death. With no body, no evidence, Oppenheimer's action would never be brought to light.
She was going to let him know that one person, at least, had held him responsible.
Sending a glance over her shoulder, she tuned in to Sam's side of the conversation. He had his back to her, and he was asking whoever was on the other end about antibiotics and chances for infection.
Juliette had a moment of concern. Had his brother's condition worsened? And then on the heels of that thought came another. The fact that it hadn't occurred first only underscored the fact that she'd spent too much time in Sam's company. Let him get too close.
Silently, she crossed to pick up her purse from the table. And then kept going, as quickly as she could, out the door.
When Sam strolled into the safe house he made sure none of the dangerous emotion roiling around inside him showed. As he entered the living room, he took a savage bit of satisfaction at the way Juliette's gaze widened, her lips parting. "Well, this is cozy."
"Tremaine." Miles didn't bother to get up from where he was ensconced on the couch, sitting a bit closer than necessary to her. "A bit careless of you to let her get away from you, wasn't it?"
Careless. There was a word, Sam thought grimly, as he took up position leaning against the opposite wall. It had been careless to lower his guard with her, even for a moment. He knew damn well the lengths she was willing to go to implement her plans. But it had been more reckless to start to care, even a little. To be concerned that the woman seemingly wouldn't be satisfied until she'd destroyed herself in her quest to ruin Oppenheimer. That mistake was unforgivable.
"Didn't take me long to trail her here, did it?" The fact that she'd managed to slip out at all would continue to sting. So her expression at his words provided a slight balm to the ego.
"You didn't follow me," she said, with the certainty of someone who'd covered her tracks. "You couldn't have."
"Tracking device," he explained laconically. He watched the storm brew in her eyes. "I could pinpoint your location exactly from miles away." Actually the device had a far greater range than that, but he was gentleman enough not to rub it in.
"That's how you followed me to Copenhagen!"
Because he knew it would annoy her, he allowed himself a satisfied smile. Then, switching his attention to Miles, he said, "She doesn't figure into this anymore, so I'll take her off your hands."
"On the contrary." Giving the crease of his trousers careful attention, Miles crossed one knee over the other. "I think Ms. Morrow can still be of some help to us."
The words hit him with the force of a punch. "We don't need her help. We have everything necessary to move on Oppenheimer. One phone call and he can be in custody within hours."
"That's true." The look on Caladesh's face said he was enjoying this. "But what if we could get more? What if we could actually find his latest shipment of weapons before he sells them?"
"Is that what she's told you?" He sent a quick glance to Juliette. "Very imaginative." His attention returned to his colleague and his voice hardened. "If she said that she knows where his storage is, she's lying to you, Miles. All she wants is some time to go ahead with her own plans for Oppenheimer, and probably screw up our arrest in the process. We can't afford to wait around while she plays her games. She could end up alerting him and send him into hiding, did you ever think of that?"
The other man withdrew a cigarette, lit it. "I believe it's worth the risk. From the information in that file it's clear that he moves his freight by water. It makes sense that he'd have an unloading spot, a place where he can store the weapons while he fills his orders and ships them out again."
"A possibility struck me on the way over here." There was an entreaty in her eyes that he chose to ignore. "My grandmother's family had a summer home on a small island in the Mediterranean. It's isolated there, at least it was when we visited fifteen years ago. We know it didn't get sold, because the taxes are still paid each year in her real name." Despite himself, Sam felt his interest sharpening. Tax records would have been easy enough for them to check out, privately and discreetly. "We couldn't claim it, of course, without alerting Oppenheimer to our whereabouts. It's possible he kept the place for his own purposes."
"Like smuggling weapons aboard his specially made yacht and storing them near the home," Miles put in smoothly. He drew on the cigarette, exhaled a narrow plume of smoke. "The possibility is too good to miss out on, Sam."
It took physical effort to release the fist that curled at his side, to keep his voice even. "A possibility is all it is, and a remote one at that. There's no reason we can't have Oppenheimer picked up first, then check this out."
"And take the chance of alerting any partners or employees that might have orders to move the shipment?" Miles shook his head. "It's worth this calculated risk. Juliette has agreed to arrange a meeting with the man on the island. And how could he resist a confrontation with le petit voleur?" He patted Juliette's knee, an action that didn't escape Sam's notice. Nor did he fail to observe the way his hand lingered there. "She can provide directions to the place. While she's keeping him busy, you can be checking out the island for the weapon store."
"Juliette, would you excuse us for a moment?" His request seemed to take both of them by surprise. Miles looked as though he'd protest, but then she rose, strode out of the room with her head held high. He waited until the door shut behind her before he shoved away from the wall and approached the couch. "What the hell are you after here?"
Caladesh brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his pants. "I'd think that would be clear."
Frustration surged, but Sam tamped it down. It wouldn't do him any good to lose his temper with the man. That wasn't the way to make him see reason. "What's clear to me is that you should have already contacted the Vienna station and told the Chief of Station what we found in that file. After that, it's out of our hands. He'll contact the Austrian Intel and the State Police there will make the arrest. You can't tell me that Headquarters didn't explain that to you very clearly when they called."
"I think you're being a bit shortsighted here." Miles stubbed his cigarette out with movements jerky with agitation. "Have you considered what this could do for both our careers if the store happens to be on that island and we can arrange for its confiscation? My God, man, we'd be heroes. With the number of terrorist groups targeting Americans these days, we're almost assured that these arms are heading to one of them, did you ever think of that? Where's your sense of duty?"
"It's pretty damn clear where yours is," Sam shot back. He half
turned, fought for control. Caladesh was so blinded by his own ambition that he didn't care about anyone else. The risk wasn't his, after all. He wouldn't be the one investigating that island. And he sure as hell wouldn't be the one confronting Oppenheimer.
The thought of Juliette doing just that made a cold sweat break out on his forehead. There were so many things that could go wrong he'd need a book to list them all. But the first and most serious danger was that to Juliette. He swung around, found that Miles had risen.
"I think I can sell this to Headquarters, as long as we move quickly."
Sam gave an incredulous laugh. Given the spin Miles was likely to put on it, he had no doubt the man was right. "Have you bothered to give a thought to Juliette's safety in this scheme? I can't be two places at once, searching the island and keeping watch on her with Oppenheimer."
"I have faith in you." Miles's shrug was indifferent. "At any rate, should things start going wrong, you're to get the hell out of there. She's expendable."
He didn't plan his next action. There was just a roaring in his ears, a red mist hazing his vision as he plowed a fist into the man's face, snapping his head back. A vicious blade of satisfaction sliced through him when he saw the blood pour from Miles's nose. "Expendable? Is that the way you think of your contacts?"
"Tremaine, you crazy bastard!" the man moaned, both his hands coming up to dam the blood rushing down his face. "What the hell's wrong with you?" He fumbled for his handkerchief, brought it to his face as he muttered curses. He glared at Sam over the top of it. "If I could, I'd have you replaced right now. Your objectivity is compromised. This is going in my report. All of it. My God, man, she's just a common thief!"
