by Amelia Autin
“Why were you avoiding me?”
“I was not—” she began. Then she admitted, “You are right. I was avoiding you.”
“Did I do something? Did I not do something?”
“That is not why...” She shook her head, unable to explain the convoluted thought process that had led to their confrontation. This time when she pulled away from him he let her go.
“Then why?” As if she owed him an answer.
And I do owe him an answer, she admitted to herself. And though her answer was just as logical as his question, there were layers of complexity to it. Layers he probably wouldn’t understand. “Shower first,” she deferred. “I needed a shower even before I saw you, and now...” When she glanced down at her pile of sweaty clothes and chuckled, he joined in.
“Yeah, we both need one now.”
They washed each other leisurely beneath the shower spray, drawing pleasure from bodies that were well matched physically. Angelina loved the way his muscles rippled beneath the surface of his smooth skin when her fingers stroked over his arms, his chest, his abs and lower. He wasn’t a muscle-bound weight lifter—his powerful body had a purpose more important than just showing off. Just as hers did.
She couldn’t get over how much her body pleased him, an enjoyment he didn’t bother to hide. Not to mention the inevitable reaction his body had to hers. But when she would have caressed his arousal, he held her off. “Not this time,” he told her firmly.
He shut off the water and they toweled themselves dry in silence. Neither had any false modesty. Neither pretended not to look, to sneak peeks at each other’s bodies. They looked openly, pleased at what they saw.
They fell into bed together, and Alec drew her into his arms, flush against his body. “So why?” he asked, as if their earlier conversation hadn’t been interrupted by the shower they’d just taken.
She didn’t pretend she didn’t know what he was asking. “Because I was excited about something and wanted to share it with you, but you were not available.” That was only part of the story, and Alec obviously knew it because he waited patiently for the rest. “So I did other things. Things I would normally do on my day off. But then I found myself standing on the sidewalk outside the US embassy with no idea how I had gotten there. It was not a conscious thing—my feet just followed that path. And all at once I realized...”
“That you wanted to be with me?”
She shook her head. “More than that,” she admitted in a low voice. “That I needed to be with you.”
* * *
Alec sighed in relief as understanding finally dawned. “It’s not a crime, Angel,” he said softly. “Needing someone. It’s not a crime to admit it, either.” Maybe for her it is, he thought. Then he remembered what he’d told her before, and he could have kicked himself for not realizing. “I know I told you I want to be the one who gives you what you need,” he said, emotion making his voice rough. “And that’s the truth. But I didn’t tell you how much I need you. I didn’t...” The words wouldn’t come easily. The words that would explain so she’d never doubt him...would never doubt them again.
“I never needed anyone before. Not like this. Not like you. My family—yeah. My brother Liam. But that’s not the same thing at all.” He was silent for a moment and she didn’t say anything, just snuggled closer. Moved her hand so it was lying against his heart, and he drew courage from that silent confession.
“I didn’t realize a man could need this way,” he admitted. “I didn’t realize I could need this way.” It still wasn’t enough. He had to break through that wall in her head, in her heart. “It’s as if I’ve lived in a world of black and white all my life, Angel. But with you, everything is in color. Glorious, unbelievable color. Could I go back to my black-and-white world? Yeah. If I had to. I just don’t want to.”
His arms tightened around her. “Please don’t doubt what we have together. The jobs we do... I could be dead tomorrow. So could you. But we’d survive. That’s the way we’re made—we’re survivors.” He breathed deeply. “But don’t exile me back to that black-and-white world just because you’re afraid of needing me.”
He rolled over suddenly, taking her with him. Pinning her beneath his body. “You’re the bravest woman I know,” he told her fiercely. “You’re not afraid of anything, not even death. Don’t be afraid of needing me.”
* * *
Aleksandrov Vishenko settled back against the leather seat of his cherished 2011 black Lincoln Town Car—the last year the luxury vehicle had been built—his hard, cold eyes fixed on the man sitting next to him in the backseat, the man he’d bought and paid for years ago.
They were alone. At least, the man thought they were alone, a condition he’d imposed on all their meetings from the very beginning, and Vishenko had humored him. Vishenko’s chauffeur had driven his boss in the Lincoln to this deserted parking lot in the wee small hours of the morning for this arranged, illicit meeting, then had gotten out of the car and walked away, leaving them alone. Vishenko’s bodyguards were hidden everywhere. They could see, but they couldn’t hear. And that was good enough for Vishenko.
He hid his contempt for the other man because he was still useful. When the man was no longer useful, he would be dead. Vishenko knew that, but the other man did not. He might suspect, but he didn’t know. Vishenko had used that suspicion more than once to his own benefit.
“What do you have for me?” he asked in a voice as cold as ice.
“The wiretap has been extended,” the man began in his most ingratiating voice.
“Do not bleat at me like a sheep. And do not tell me things I already know from other sources.”
Intimidation sometimes worked with this man, as he yielded information he would not otherwise reveal in his fear of losing his usefulness to Vishenko.
The money Vishenko had paid him through the years was enough to supplement the man’s lifestyle, not support it. Vishenko had made sure of it. He wanted him to remain with his current federal agency employer. Even though this man was one of the weapons in Vishenko’s arsenal, he never let on just how important his information had become over the years or paid him what the information was really worth. He always downplayed its significance, as he was doing now. Vishenko hadn’t heard the FBI’s wiretap had been extended. But he knew it now.
Not that he ever said anything incriminating over the phone. He wasn’t stupid. His homes—the condo in Manhattan and his estate on Long Island—as well as this car, were electronically swept for listening devices daily. Everyone who met with him was screened by his men for a body wire—neither the FBI nor the agency would ever convict him that way.
“So what do you have to tell me that is worth our meeting like this?”
“The agency has been sending out feelers again,” the man said quickly. “Asking for the FBI’s assistance. The two agencies haven’t worked together since their joint task force was disbanded six months ago. The joint task force focused on your nephew and his super PAC, NOANC.”
“Michael is in jail, and will remain in jail. And his political action committee, NOANC, is dead.” Vishenko’s voice grew even colder. “What does this have to do with me? The task force tried—and failed—to establish a link between Michael and me, other than the familial one. We are related, yes. But that is all. The joint FBI/agency task force could never prove otherwise.”
And they never will, he thought but didn’t say. He’d been extremely careful to keep his distance from Michael Vishenko’s plots and schemes, the product of his nephew’s uncontrollable desire for revenge against the men he held responsible for the death of his father, David Pennington.
The task force had also tried to tie Aleksandrov Vishenko to David Pennington, again with no success, because there hadn’t been anything to find. Except for one minor detail. One extremely minor detail he’d almost forgotten. Which meant
the task force had nothing on him. Unless...
Unless Caterina Mateja had surfaced. Unless she’d given the FBI or the agency—or both, he thought grimly—the evidence she’d stolen from him when she ran. If someone pieced together the two seemingly disparate documents, that would be the evidence the now-disbanded task force needed to bring him down. A task force that could easily be revived.
Vishenko dismissed the man and watched him as he got out of the car and walked away, furtively glancing around to make sure he wasn’t spotted. Vishenko laughed softly to himself, then called his chauffeur on his cell phone just in case the chauffeur hadn’t seen the other man leave.
As he was being driven back to Manhattan, Vishenko coldly reminded himself he needed to find Caterina and silence her permanently. Even if the documents surfaced, they could not be introduced as evidence without her to authenticate their source.
Failure to find Caterina was no longer an option he could afford.
* * *
Alec and Angelina dozed briefly. Then woke, ravenous. They raided her kitchen wearing nothing but T-shirts, and she was glad she’d restocked her refrigerator that afternoon. Alec’s appetite for food was as unapologetically hearty as his appetite for sex.
They feasted in bed, and Angelina didn’t even care about the crumbs. Crumbs could be brushed away. Watching Alec eat, watching his enjoyment of the little delicacies she’d bought with him in mind—although she hadn’t admitted it to herself at the time—was another sensual pleasure she cherished.
“So tell me,” she said, forking a pickled beet from the jar she held, popping it in her mouth before it could drip and making a face at the sweet tartness.
“Tell you what?”
“Why you had a hell of a day.”
He grimaced and shook his head regretfully. “Sorry, Angel. It’s something I can’t really discuss with you. But it was, believe me. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job most of the time. But today was a hell of a day. And it’s still not resolved.”
“Nothing to do with what you told me, is it? About why the king brought you here?”
“No. But there is news on that front.” He was silent for a moment, his face troubled, as if he wasn’t sure how she’d take whatever he had to tell her.
“It is bad?” she asked. “Bad news?” Her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. “Caterina. She is dead. That is what you do not want to tell me.”
He put his plate down on the bedside table, roughly pushing the lamp to one side. “No, that’s not it. We don’t think she’s dead.” He took the jar of pickled beets from her, placed it beside his plate and then held both her hands in his. “We think we might have a line on her,” he explained.
“A line? What is that?”
He laughed briefly at himself. “It just means... Oh, hell, it’s not something that translates easily. Literally it has to do with fishing, but figuratively it means we think we might know where she is. We’re not sure it’s even the same person, but...we think it might be.”
“We? You mean you and Princess Mara’s husband?”
“Yeah. Remember what I told you, that McKinnon was checking out your cousin for me?” She nodded. “McKinnon asked my sister, who works at his agency, to run a check on your cousin. Visas, travel records, anything and everything she could find. Keira found something else. On a totally different case. And she made the connection—easy, she says, because the name is so unusual. Caterina Mateja. Neither Caterina nor Mateja is common in the US.” He paused, and she knew he was trying to find a way to tell her something he really didn’t want to tell her. Because he knew it would hurt her.
“It is best to just say it, straight out,” she told him. “Whatever it is, I can handle it.”
He took a deep breath. “If your cousin is the Caterina Mateja that Keira tracked down, she’s still alive. But how long is anyone’s guess, because someone ordered a hit. And the going price is a million dollars.”
“Who?” Angelina whispered. “Who wants her dead?”
Alec’s face formed into grim lines. “His name is Vishenko. Aleksandrov Vishenko. McKinnon’s encountered him before, and it’s all bad. Really bad. Vishenko is the head of a branch of—”
“The Bratva,” she said, cutting him off, her eyes growing huge as she made the connection. “The Russian mob. Operating in the US and now in Zakhar. I know.”
He stared at her. “How do you know that?”
“That was why I called you today,” she told him. “To tell you I interrogated the surviving cameraman. To tell you he finally gave us names. Not only the other cameraman—a Russian, Yuri Ivanovitch—but the man who was really behind the assassination attempt on the crown prince. Another Russian. Alexei Vishenko.”
Chapter 13
“Son of a bitch!” Alec whispered under his breath. Just that quickly he saw everything plain. It all finally made sense. Incredible, unbelievable sense.
Vishenko and the Bratva, involved in trafficking Zakharian women into the United States—a highly profitable, illegal enterprise. Zakhar’s king, whose focus was on stopping it, who’d maneuvered to bring Alec in as RSO for that very reason. Vishenko wanting the king distracted. Not dead. No, not that. What had McKinnon said about Vishenko? “He’s plowed his money into legitimate enterprises... Not as profitable, but profitable enough. And completely aboveboard...”
Stable governments equaled stable economies. Stable economies equaled steady profits for legitimate businesses. So if Vishenko had money invested in legitimate enterprises here in Zakhar—which seemed likely—of course he wouldn’t want to destabilize the economy by assassinating the king. Killing the crown prince would put a bobble in the economy, true, but it wouldn’t have the same destabilizing effect as killing the king. But it would turn the king’s attention away from the human-trafficking ring. Hadn’t it already done so to a certain extent? Hadn’t Angelina told him the king had diverted focus to investigate the backgrounds of every person on the security details guarding the royal family?
Sowing suspicion within the ranks. Not exactly divide and conquer, but close enough. Alec was a student of political history, and he’d often wondered why governments never seemed to learn the harsh lessons history taught. Why it seemed as if every generation or so, the same things came to pass, and the men and women in uniform paid the price again and again. He didn’t exempt his own country from that severe judgment—the United States was often the worst offender when it came to forgetting history.
Wasn’t that one of the main reasons he and Liam had joined the Diplomatic Security Service when they got out of the Marine Corps? Because diplomacy, no matter how futile it sometimes seemed, was often better than all-out war?
But this wasn’t one government calling out another. This was one man who thought he was above the law, who thought he and his criminal organization could get away with murder. Not on my watch, Alec thought grimly. The rule of law has to be the rule of law for everyone—governments and individuals. Somehow he had to bring Vishenko to justice. And Caterina Mateja was the key.
He started assembling a plan in his head, automatically assigning tasks to McKinnon, Keira, Angelina and himself. Then he cursed under his breath. “I need to talk to McKinnon,” he told Angelina abruptly. “And then we need to see the king.”
* * *
Eleven people sat around the conference table in the same small conference room where Alec had met with the king, the king’s cousin and closest confidant, and the secretary of state. The seven people Alec had wanted in attendance—the king, the three policemen working the case for Zakhar, McKinnon, Angelina and himself—had been augmented by four more. Captain Zale was there at Angelina’s insistence, and Colonel Marianescu and Majors Kostya and Branko were there at the king’s request.
Alec presented the known facts and the conjectures he’d drawn from them. He was c
areful how he disclosed what Angelina had told him, explaining that it was only after he’d given her Vishenko’s name in connection with her cousin that she’d revealed his name had also come up in the investigation into the assassination attempt on the crown prince. And of course he left out completely that they’d been in bed together when they’d shared their information on Aleksandrov Vishenko. Not only was it immaterial to the investigation, but he knew it was his responsibility to shield Angelina from any criticism that could be leveled at her by the men in the room. Especially since it would be completely unwarranted.
When he was finished, he leaned back in his chair and said, “I want to add Lieutenant Mateja to my team, Your Majesty. Her cousin is the key to bringing down Vishenko—I know it. I firmly believe Lieutenant Mateja will be critical in locating her cousin and convincing her to testify against Vishenko in the trafficking case. I realize this might put a strain on the queen’s security detail, especially since we don’t know how long this will take—that’s why the lieutenant wanted her captain here for the discussion.”
McKinnon spoke for the first time. “I don’t think there will be a problem convincing my agency to let us continue using Special Agent Keira Walker’s services for as long as we need her. My agency has been after Vishenko for years, and I know the head of the agency would give his eyeteeth to bring him down. So any assets we need, all we have to do is ask.”
The king nodded and looked at Captain Zale. “Captain? What is your opinion?”
“Lieutenant Mateja is a critical member of the queen’s security detail,” he said.
Damned right, Alec couldn’t help thinking. I’m glad you finally see that.
“But with a little cooperation from the queen,” Captain Zale continued, “we can function without the lieutenant’s services for as long as necessary. As I see it, bringing to justice the man who attempted to end the life of the crown prince takes precedence over nearly every other consideration.”
