Tempted Into Danger

by Melissa Cutler

  “You have my voice mail numbers and the locker code?”

  “I do.”

  “That means you can take care of yourself if it comes to that.” He suckled her earlobe.

  Tingles of pleasure rushed all over her skin. She reached her chin over her shoulder, all the way back until her lips found his and captured them in a kiss. “It’s not going to come to that,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re not going to let it.”

  “Damn right, I’m not.” Determination, ferocious and unyielding, emanated from his eyes and voice.

  She hooked an arm around his head and pulled his lips to hers. They kissed deeply, evoking memories of the way he’d made her feel the night before. His hands traveled over the front of her, from her breasts to her belly.

  When she ground her backside into his erection, he spun her to face him and continued their kiss. Everywhere her hands explored, she hit a weapon—a knife or gun, grenades and ropes of muscle.

  He pulled away, his breathing labored.

  “Tonight, after we’re done with the bank, we’re going to finish this. Somewhere it’s just the two of us. But if I keep kissing you right now, I’m not going to have enough blood left in my brain to keep you safe at the bank.”

  It was a reasonable request, and yet his erection was still pressing into her belly, calling for her to touch. A quick fondle to whet her appetite for later, she decided, reaching her hand between them.

  Fast as lightning, he captured her wrist and brought it to his lips, pressing a kiss to her pulse point. “Tonight.”

  She played up a disappointed sigh as he lifted her blouse from the bed and helped her into it. “Once you get your top and jacket on, practice pulling your firearm again. It’ll be harder with your clothes on.”

  While she buttoned it, he put on a white undershirt, then a white dress shirt. All she’d seen him in were form-fitting black T-shirts and black cargo pants, but she liked him looking all Tom Cruise in Risky Business, with the shirt and underwear.

  Shrugging into her suit jacket, she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  “Let me watch you draw your weapon now.”

  She drew and stepped back into the position he’d taught her. It took longer to remove the gun from its holster, and when she did, it snagged on the jacket.

  “Again,” he said.

  She glanced at his reflection in the closet mirror. He was tying a burgundy tie. Man, oh, man, did he look fine. Like the world’s most lethal businessman. His raw, primal power civilized, but barely. She drew, aiming at her reflection.

  “Better.” He flipped the ends of the tie, knotting it with a deft skill that caught her by surprise. “Again.”

  She was feeling more confident with every pull. This plan had to work today. Nothing was going to go wrong. She wouldn’t need to shoot a gun or put her Leroy plan in action. Diego was in charge, and he never failed. She was going to be fine.

  * * *

  Vanessa saw the mission laid out in her head like a grid.

  Rory and John were somewhere outside, working the lookout points. Ryan sat in the lobby, playing it cool while pretending to wait for an appointment. An ICE unit was on standby at the attaché office, ready to move when she pulled up the locations of any people accessing the Chiaras’ account in the last several months.

  She had a plan to get into her office with Diego and Alicia, a plan to make the fifty million dollars in the Chiara account disappear and more than one plan to leave the building. Everything was laid out in a perfectly logical, mathematical grid. Grids, she could handle.

  What she was having trouble with, what she was notoriously terrible at and had been her whole life, was lying. Trotting Diego and Alicia up to the ground-floor guard, she thought she might start hyperventilating, she was so paranoid about getting caught. And she’d thought the guilt from copying client account information onto a zip drive had been overwhelming.

  But Alicia had told her on the drive that morning that in covert ops, confidence was everything. Act like you know what you’re doing and people will believe you.

  So she offered the incessantly brutish guard a smile. “Good morning.”

  He grunted. Friendly as he ever was. Today, though, she was grateful he wasn’t chatty.

  He cast a distrustful look at Diego and Alicia. “Manuel Rodriguez and Natalie Callahan,” she said by way of introductions. “They’re visiting from the Venezuela branch for training and should be on your list.” Because Alicia had planted the names there the night before.

  The guard read the fake names off the bank IDs she and Alicia had created, then buzzed them through the door. One bridge crossed and many more to go. The next one being to get to her office without running into any supervisors, who’d know right away that there weren’t any inter-branch bank employee training sessions on the books.

  The ground floor was Monday-morning quiet, thank goodness. Vanessa kept her head down and avoided eye contact. The three of them fast-walked over the marble floor to the elevator landing on the far side.

  “Vanessa?”

  Vanessa froze, simmering behind her smile. Drat. It was Carol, an investment analyst she was friendly with.

  Diego and Alicia stepped out of the way as Carol pulled her into a hug. “I heard about the gas leak in your apartment complex. That’s horrible. Are you okay?”

  “Perfectly fine. But I’m due in a meeting. Let’s get together for lunch and I’ll tell you all about it.” The lie made her face hot and had probably turned her skin tomato-red.

  She mashed her thumb on the elevator button. Diego and Alicia flanked her.

  “You’re doing great,” Diego whispered, his eyes scanning the room.

  His praise calmed her twitchy nerves and helped her stand still until the elevator chimed and the doors opened.

  Inside, Vanessa punched the button for the ninth floor. Another hurdle cleared. But before the doors closed all the way, a man’s arm popped through and wedged them open.

  “Going up?” Mr. Tavares said, like they weren’t already on the lowest level. He squeezed in and beamed at Vanessa, tapping a file against his left palm. “Well, look who it is. Terrible, about your apartment fire. It was an answer to all our prayers that you weren’t seriously injured.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Do you have a place to stay until you get settled in a new apartment?”

  She cleared her throat. “I do. My best friend lives in the city. Thanks for asking.”

  The elevator chimed at the ninth floor and they all stepped out. For the first time, Mr. Tavares seemed to notice Diego and Alicia.

  “These are visitors from our Venezuela branch, in the mortgage lending department.” The heat rose on her face again as her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. Mr. Tavares and the manager of the mortgage lending department hated each other, so there was no way he’d call to double-check her story. “I’m giving them a tour, but I’m taking them to my office to show them the new customer service interface on our website first.” Confidence was everything, she reminded herself.

  After introductions and handshakes, Diego and Alicia followed Vanessa through the hall to her office. She made to close the door, but Diego stilled her with a head shake.

  “Don’t close it. He’s still watching,” he said in a low voice.

  The words made her stomach churn. Maybe this wasn’t going to work, not with Mr. Tavares buzzing around. Was it her imagination or did he have a glimmer of awareness in his eye that she was up to no good? She was about to scold herself for acting paranoid like she had on Friday with the zip drive, but then, hadn’t her paranoia been justified? Who was to say it wasn’t right now?

  She shook off the questions and drew a fortifying breath. Nothing was going to happen to her at t
he office on a work day—especially not with Diego and Alicia in the room. Calmer, she walked to her chair. Time to get this mission over with before she lost her breakfast.

  Diego positioned himself on the far side of the room in front of the windows that looked out on the street and the Pacific Ocean two blocks over.

  “We’re in,” he said into the wire masquerading as a cell phone ear piece. Vanessa heard his words through her ear piece as well as Ryan’s, John’s and Rory’s responses.

  To Vanessa, Diego added, “Your boss is creepy” under his breath.

  “Creepy, but harmless.”

  Alicia sat in a chair along the wall and drummed her fingers on the armrest. “Let’s hope so.” A laptop rested on her legs with a cable running between it and Vanessa’s computer so they could both look at the same screen.

  Vanessa pulled up her log-in screen for the bank’s system. “Let’s make fifty million dollars disappear.”

  She tapped in her password, but the computer dinged. Access denied.

  “Try again,” Alicia prompted.

  Typing slower and more deliberately, she reentered her name and password. Again, the Access Denied pop-up screen appeared with a ding. “I don’t know what to do. Someone must have locked me out of the system.”

  Diego peered out the inside office window. Vanessa followed his gaze to Mr. Tavares, who was talking with another man. Every few seconds, his eyes shifted back to Vanessa’s office. “I don’t like this. It could mean the bank insider knows our plan. I’m giving this five minutes, tops, and then we’re out of here.”

  “I’ll get us in the system,” Alicia said. Her fingers flew over the keyboard. They sat in silence as they waited. Vanessa watched Alicia’s handiwork through her screen as she hacked the system. “We’re in.”

  Thank God. Her heart thumping like mad, Vanessa pulled up the SPB Investing account. She stared at the account total. Fifty million and change.

  Then the screen refreshed. The total had dropped by a hundred grand.

  Alicia sat straighter. “Wait a sec...”

  Her hands unsteady, Vanessa clicked over to the account’s withdrawal history. What she saw stopped her cold. She met Diego’s searching stare. “Someone just withdrew a hundred thousand dollars cash using one of the tellers on the ground floor of the bank.”

  Diego was mid-stride toward Vanessa’s desk when he abruptly stopped and relaxed his posture. “Incoming,” he whispered.

  “Vanessa’s words were muffled. Repeat, please,” said Ryan’s voice through the wire. “Is there a problem? Please copy.”

  The next second, Mr. Tavares was in the doorway. “Say, Vanessa, I thought you were supposed to be leading our visitors on a tour of the building. They didn’t come all the way from Venezuela to sit in your office.”

  He let out a hollow, forced laugh.

  “We’re about to start the tour, but first we’re going over some of the bank’s security features.” Her throat was impossibly dry and itchy. She tried in vain to ease the itching by clearing it. “Is there something I can do for you, sir?”

  Mr. Tavares toyed with the wand that opened and closed the blinds to the window that bordered the hallway. “Actually, I do have a quick question, if our guests will indulge me the interruption. Regarding the matter we discussed on Friday, you have something to give me. A program. I know you went through a lot this weekend and probably didn’t have time to work out all the kinks, but I need it, finished or not. Okay?”

  Play it cool, Vee. Close to the vest. She smiled at him. “Yes. I’ll drop it by your office in a few minutes.”

  “How about I take it right now?”

  * * *

  The second that Tavares twisted the rod and closed the blinds, Diego plunged his hand into his jacket and settled his palm on his Sig. They hadn’t crossed the line to where he was going to start knocking heads and abort the mission, but they were at the threshold.

  Someone presently inside the building had withdrawn a hundred grand in cash—a Chiara brother with the help of a dirty bank employee, most likely. Diego’s instincts were throwing up all sorts of red alerts on Tavares, but seeing as how Diego had maintained a visual on the guy while the transaction had gone down, he definitely wasn’t the Chiara insider.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t guilty of something else, though.

  What Diego needed to do was get the information to Ryan that a Chiara brother or representative was somewhere in the building, but Tavares wasn’t going to leave the room and Diego wasn’t about to take his eyes off the man to send Ryan a text or leave Vanessa vulnerable so he could step out to the hall to explain the situation over the wire, even if it meant a Chiara slipped past their defenses.

  Then again, Ryan, John and Rory should have all the exits covered. They’d recognize Nico, Enzo, Leo or one of their men in a heartbeat. How had a Chiara gotten into the building if his crew were doing their jobs?

  As Tavares settled into the chair next to Alicia, Ryan’s voice came over the wire again. “Devil, there’s another problem. Ghost Rider is M.I.A. His wire’s been disconnected.”

  Where the hell was Rory? More importantly, why? Actually, scratch that. Didn’t matter why. Rory’s disappearance was one suspicious circumstance too many. Time to leave.

  “Eight Ball, get the van,” he said into his ear piece, no longer concerned if Tavares heard. “We’re aborting.”

  “Copy that,” Ryan said.

  Alicia shut her computer and stood, her face and posture a picture of tranquility, as was her usual game face.

  Vanessa, who’d heard the update right along with them, was trying and failing not to look rattled as she gawked at Tavares. He made a mental note to never let her play poker with his sister Gabriela, then got in her line of sight.

  “I could use a smoke break. You have a smoking lounge in this building?”

  Vanessa blinked at him as his request sank in. “No. Most people smoke in the plaza out back. I’ll take you.”

  Tavares leapt to his feet as she rose. “Not until you get me that program.” He planted his feet in the doorway, blocking their exit. Like Diego couldn’t lift his sweaty, paunchy body out of the way with one hand tied behind his back.

  “Yeah, well, I get cranky when I need a smoke, so your little program’s going to have to wait.”

  He had a hand on Tavares’s shoulder when the peal of the smoke alarm sounded and everyone in the room jumped. Outside the door, workers shuffled by in the direction of the stairwell, grumbling about another unannounced fire drill. Leroy’s first rule when a mission went FUBAR was to know what’s still in your control and give up everything else.

  The first thing Diego was giving up was the charade. He brought his Sig out and shoved it into Tavares’s neck, strong-arming him against the wall.

  Alicia kicked the door closed.

  He jiggled the muzzle of his gun against Tavares’s jugular. “Who’s got you fishing around for Vanessa’s program?”

  Tavares stammered, nervous. Diego didn’t have time for nervous. He brought his left fist into the man’s gut, then raised the gun to his temple. No more deadly a position, but there was something about the person actually seeing the gun that has the potential to blow their brains out that convinced them to cooperate.

  “You gotta speak up so I can hear you over this fire alarm. Who’s using you to get to Vanessa? And it’s the last time I’m going to ask nicely.”

  Alicia patted Tavares down for weapons but came up empty.

  “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Tavares squeaked. “Don’t kill me.”

  Not the answer Diego was expecting. He exchanged a look with Alicia. She shook her head and Diego had to agree. No freaking way that was possible.

  He slapped his Sig across Tavares’s cheek. “Try again.”

 
“N-n-no, I’m telling you the truth. Immigration and—”

  “Yeah, I heard that part,” Diego said. “Who’s your contact there?”

  The door banged open and hit the window behind it, cracking the glass. Rory stood in the doorway, his prized Kimber .45 in hand.

  In his periphery, Diego saw Alicia move into a shielding stance in front of Vanessa, her gun drawn. She nailed Rory with a look of distrust. Come to think of it, Diego was starting to feel that way about Rory, too.

  Maintaining his hold on Tavares, he turned his focus on Rory. “What are you doing out of position?”

  “You sounded like you were in trouble. Thought you might like some help.”

  He crowded into Rory’s space. “Did I ask for help?”

  He was too close and too pissed to see it coming. The jolt of the stun gun on his gut zapped him into the worst pain he’d endured in several years. His gun fell from his hand as he hit the ground.

  Rory ripped Diego’s ear piece off and crushed it with his boot.

  Gasping for breath, Diego couldn’t make his twitching muscles function properly. All he could do was bellow when Rory raised his gun and fired a shot in Vanessa’s direction.

  Chapter 20

  Vanessa saw the stun gun before Diego did, but not with enough time to warn him. She reached behind her and drew her gun, her world slowing down and coming into crystal-clear focus while she watched him collapse.

  Rory raised his weapon. He was going to kill them all and she couldn’t let that happen.

  Before she could aim, Alicia swept her legs from under her, knocking her to the ground as a shot exploded.

  She looked up in time to see Alicia stagger back and collapse to the ground behind the desk, her chest bloody.

  Oh, God. He’d killed Alicia. She or Diego would be next.

  Rolling to her hands and knees, she found the gun on the ground and clutched it with both hands.

  The zap of the stun gun sounded again, followed by Diego’s groans. She clutched the gun like a lifeline. Rory was a far better and faster shot than she’d ever be. Surprise was her only hope. Instead of leaping up while shooting and getting herself killed, she held her position under the desk.