It had taken Rox longer than she would have liked, though she’d managed to finally track him down. And though she was loathe to bring in another player at this point, she needed his help and his contacts to get to Lightner. After months, she’d finally gotten close. She felt it in her bones, like a cat that knows the mouse is just inside the wall. Which was why she was standing in Avi Oded’s apartment now, waiting for him like an ex-girlfriend, looking for clues as to where he’d been and what he’d been up to.
When Avi had loped out of his apartment building this morning, he’d been wearing board shorts, carrying his surfboard, looking casual and relaxed as he headed for the sand. He didn’t look like a spy. He didn’t look like a military operative who’d been one of the youngest and most impressive reconnaissance officers Sayeret Matkal had seen in a decade. But he was. And for a second, she could have sworn he looked right at her, though it was difficult to tell under his shades. Not that he would have recognized her. They’d never met face-to-face.
Today Rox was dressed casually in tight jeans, high-heeled espadrilles, and a loose bohemian blouse, wearing a wig with long, loose honey waves. Her oversized Chanel sunglasses hid half her face. She looked like a chic Israeli chilling out on her day off, not the Chicano fixer she was.
A sound at the front door made her turn. Rox moved swiftly to step behind the door, surprised he was coming back so soon. She drew a compact Kahr CW9 gun that was small enough to fit nicely in the back of her jeans but packed a big enough punch that she wasn’t worried about the slim, single stack magazine. Rox mounted and screwed on the suppressor to the gun’s muzzle as the door knob turned.
The door opened about a foot. Rox stepped back just enough to aim about head-height at whoever was entering.
There was a momentary pause, so fleeting—she nearly missed it. As if whoever was coming in stepped right back out into the hall. She moved forward, gun up when the door suddenly slammed open, smacking her right back into the wall.
Rox grunted in pain, but managed to hold onto the gun.
Avi stepped around the door, looking right at her, his own sidearm pointed at her face, his body and hair still wet from surfing.
“I was hoping we’d finally meet,” he murmured, his warm baritone tinged with the softest of accents. “Though I don’t recall inviting you in.”
“I’m not the kind of girl to wait for an invitation,” Rox replied lightly even as they faced off, aiming their guns at each other’s heads.
He surprised her by smiling slowly before kicking the door closed. He slowly lowered his gun, and she did too because she wasn’t there to hurt him. No—Rox needed his help.
In that split second of distraction, Avi surprised her by snapping his weapon up and to the side, knocking Rox’s hand wide. He body slammed her into the wall, pinning her wrist with brutal strength. She went to knee him in the balls, but Avi countered by wedging his thigh against her, hitching her up so she was high on her toes, balanced precariously.
“What the—” Rox gasped, struggling, but the next thing she knew, Avi’s free hand was roaming over her in a rough and thorough search of her body, seeking the hard edge of other weapons. He found the switchblade in her pocket and tossed it across the room in a clatter before his hand returned to her, cataloguing her hips and ribs with blunt fingertips. They stared at each other, her breath caught in her throat at the unexpected intimacy of his touch.
“Who are you?” he asked softly, leaning so close, Rox could see the gold flecks in the green of his eyes. “What do you want?” he pressed when she didn’t immediately answer, squeezing her wrist painfully.
“Lucien Lightner’s head in a box,” she snapped, pushing back against him, trying to gain purchase as she wriggled in his hold. But he was a solid wall of hard muscle. He smelt like warm sun and cool saltwater. “I work for Sam.”
Avi cocked his head, considering her, like he was trying to figure out if he’d seen her before. He moved back enough to pull the sunglasses from her eyes, tossing them in the same direction as her knife.
“Hey—I liked those!” she protested, frowning. “You owe me four hundred dollars.”
“And you owe me a new lock,” Avi countered, his eyes roving over her carefully made-up face. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
“Call her,” Rox replied succinctly. “She told me to tell you she needs you to keep being her ‘rook.’ She said you’d know what that meant.”
A flash of recognition flitted across his eyes. Avi jammed his thumb into the tender cordons of her wrist, making her hiss. She felt her hand go numb as he snagged the gun from her tingling hand before stepping back.
“You were sitting at the café outside my building this morning,” he said flatly as he moved into the kitchen.
“I was,” she replied, not bothering to lie as she watched him put her gun high into one of the cabinets. He was tall, so it was easy for him, but she’d have to crawl on the counter to retrieve it. Dammit. Her eyes went to the switchblade lying on the floor.
“Pick up that knife and I won’t make you coffee, neshama sheli,”15 he tutted.
“How do I know your coffee will be worth it?” she sassed, her pride still smarting a little that he’d gained the upper hand. Rox didn’t like how easily he’d handled her. Or how much she’d enjoyed it.
“Trust me, it’s worth it,” he answered, his accent making the simple response sound nearly indecent.
“What does ‘neshama’ mean?”
“It’s a Hebrew endearment.”
“And why would you refer to a woman who broke into your flat as an endearment?” Rox asked.
Avi’s smile was relaxed as he poured ground coffee into the filter of a high-tech-looking coffee machine. “What man doesn’t enjoy being pursued by a woman as good-looking as you, neshama?”
Fair enough. If the tables had been turned, she might like it too.
Rox approached slowly, moving to stand behind his kitchen counter so they had a bit of distance between them. She watched him move around his kitchen casually, behaving as if he hadn’t just had her wedged between the wall and the hard lines of his body.
She was only marginally relieved he hadn’t found the Smith & Wesson .38 Special she had strapped to her ankle, reminding herself that he was an ally. But a guy like Avi, so fluent at working both sides, wasn’t the kind of guy you took your eye off of. Not for a second.
“That’s one of my favorite knives, you know,” she told him as he set out two coffee mugs.
“You can have it back once I know you won’t try to use it on me,” he answered, a little smile playing at his mouth. “Do you take milk and sugar?”
“I take it black—like your soul.”
“Ha!” Avi barked out a laugh. “I have a feeling that’s a bit ironic coming from you.”
Looking at him up close, Rox could see how emphatically his features were defined. Avi’s attractiveness was deeply embedded in his lacerating boldness. He wasn’t actually conventionally handsome. Up close, she could see he’d had his nose broken once or twice. She saw the scar over his lip, a nick under his eyebrow. Avi had the face of a soldier, but it was his charm and inherent seductiveness that made him so damn appealing.
“Do you have a name?” he asked, interrupting her perusal.
“Neshama, apparently,” Rox replied.
He lifted a brow, shifting the topic of conversation. “So you’re looking for information on Lightner.”
“I am.”
“MI-6 and Interpol not being so forthcoming?” he surmised.
“I don’t think they have anything concrete,” she replied.
“So why do you think I can help you?” Avi inquired.
“Because you’re the only one I know of who surveilled Lightner for years when you were working undercover at Leviathan. You know first-hand how he thinks, how he operates. I’m willing to bet you took it upon yourself to do plenty of digging as soon as you returned from Afghanistan.”
“I l
ike Sam. I didn’t want to see her hurt,” Avi admitted with a shrug.
“She’s also worth more to your government alive than dead with that oil deal you struck,” Rox pointed out. “Which is why you agreed to help her against Nazar in the first place.”
“And now you’d like me to help you.” He considered her thoughtfully, his mesmeric gaze trailing over her. “I’d like to know your name and see your face first. The real one behind all that impeccable makeup.”
“We’ve just met and you already want to see me naked,” Rox replied, brow raised.
“You show up in my house like a mysterious, wicked gift, and your mouth looks like a perfect red ribbon. Anyone in their right mind would want to unwrap you, neshama. What man could blame me?”
“You say the sweetest things,” she drawled, sounding bored even though his words made her pulse flutter. Rox wouldn’t mind to be unwrapped by a man the likes of Avi for a night. Not at all. “But that’s not going to happen.”
“We’ll see,” he replied softly, and Rox once again found herself wondering what wiling a few hours away with Avi might be like. Stay focused, she chided herself.
“All you need to know is Sam trusts me, and she trusts you. She’d like us to work together to find Lightner,” Rox reiterated.
“Well, if we’re going to be partners, I’d still like to know who you are,” he returned.
“All you need to know is that I’ve got a bead on where he is now.”
Avi managed to hide his surprise, but only just. He had to be wondering how a mysterious American found the man who’d moved right to the top of everyone’s Most Wanted list.
“You’re a bounty hunter,” he realized.
“Not exactly.”
He leaned forward, “Then what are you? Besides gorgeous and good with knives, that is?”
A fixer, an avenger, a phantom, a weapon. Though in this case, she’d have to be a killer, because there was no way she was going to let Lightner escape alive, especially since he’d figured out who she was. Rox may have started this for Sam, but she was going to finish this for herself.
“What or who I am doesn’t matter, Avi. All you need to know is Lightner is a dead man walking. Now are you willing to work together with me on this or what?”
“What’s in it for me, neshama?” he asked frankly. “I upheld my end of the bargain with Sam in Afghanistan. At this point, she’s indebted to me. Not the other way around.”
“You heard about the ten-million-dollar bounty Jack Roman put on Lightner’s head?” she responded. “I’ll split it with you if you help me find him. That’s better than any pension you’d get from Mossad, don’t you think?”
Avi examined her silently, weighing the pros and cons. Rox could think of very few reasons for him to turn her down, but then, Sam warned her Avi would only play tit for tat. “I still want to know who you are.”
Rox smiled slowly. “It’s the not knowing that makes it a little more fun, don’t you think?”
Would the money be enough? She wasn’t certain, but Avi was smart, resourceful, and used to playing for multiple teams simultaneously. That kind of fluid duplicity made him versatile and endlessly resourceful. Like her, he traded in secrets. Information was their gold mine. Naturally, he’d want to know who she was, friend or foe. But only a handful of people knew her true identity. It was going to remain that way.
“Do you know how Lightner managed to get out of London?” he finally asked.
“On a container ship,” she answered readily. “But he was in a bad way when he left the UK”
“How’s that?” Avi asked curiously.
“I may have shot him a couple times.” Rox shrugged.
His brows raised. “I thought Sam wanted him alive.”
“She did.”
“So then why did you shoot him, neshama?”
“To amuse myself, mainly,” Rox responded blithely, not bothering to mention the fact that she’d done it to protect Jack and ultimately, herself.
“Remind me not to anger you, then.”
“I think you’re smart enough to know better,” she remarked before continuing. “Lightner was aboard a Dutch boat manned by a Belgian captain. I’ll tell you more if you agree to help me.”
Avi turned toward the coffee maker, filling both mugs with a rich, aromatic brew. He placed her coffee in front of her on the counter before sipping his own.
“Thank you,” she murmured, blowing the heat gently before taking a tentative sip. It was hot as hell, but delicious. She held the thick stoneware mug in her hands, warming them.
“Alright, neshama. We have a deal,” Avi told her after a moment. “So where did Lightner end up?”
“He only got as far as Malta on that ship, but his fever was too bad to continue without medical attention at that point,” she explained. “He was put under the protection of a Catholic monastery until he recovered.”
“I’m surprised he wasn’t struck dead upon entering a church,” Avi commented dryly. “I assume Lightner is no longer in Malta?”
“No.” She shook her head. “When he was well enough, he boarded a second ship. A commercial fishing vessel.”
“Bound for?”
Rox smiled. “Tel Aviv.”
His brows shot up. “No kidding?”
“Why else would I darken your doorway, Avi?” she asked reasonably.
“You darkened my doorway a few months ago in Paris,” Avi pointed out. “Except you were a brunette then, I believe.”
“You noticed, huh?” she remarked, impressed.
“Why did you follow me then?”
“Sam likes to know who she’s getting into business with.”
“Do you work exclusively for her?”
“Until Lightner’s ten feet under, I do.”
He tilted his head. “So you intend to kill him.”
“Well, I’m not going to go on a date with him.”
He smiled into his coffee mug. “I’d be heartbroken if you did.”
Rox smirked in spite of herself.
“So how can I help you, neshama?”
“I know he’s here, and I’m pretty certain what his next move is, but I don’t know all the players here. That’s where you come in.”
“And why do you think he picked Tel Aviv to go underground?” Avi asked. “What makes you think he’s even still here?”
“Because if I were him, I’d be looking for exceptionally talented mercenaries for protection and a safe place to undergo extensive plastic surgery. Both of which are exceptionally easy to attain here in Israel,” she reasoned.
Avi considered her for a long moment. “There are hundreds of qualified plastic surgeons in Tel Aviv, neshama. Not to mention practically every Israeli and Palestinian male has the potential to provide Lightner with protection. We all serve in the military at some point.”
“But only a handful of those surgeons have both the skill to do a complete facial reconstruction and are unethical and greedy enough to never report it, and I’m willing to bet you have a very good idea of the exact kind of mercenary Lightner would go for. He’ll only want the best and brightest if he’s going after Sam,” Rox pointed out.
“He could just be going to ground.”
“Doubtful,” she responded. “Between her and Jack, Lightner’s had nearly everything taken from him. A man with that kind of pride won’t let it go. He’ll want his revenge. He won’t wait for the satisfaction.”
Avi poured himself more coffee. “I’ll help you on adjusted terms.”
“Which are?”
“I’d like to know your name—your real name,” he amended with a look that made her want to agree to anything. And she was sure many had. Avi was the kind of man who made you forget to breathe. A tricky weapon in an already impressive arsenal.
“Tell you what—we’ll split the bounty, and I’ll let you see me—all of me—for one night,” she finally offered, a little frisson of excitement strumming through her veins. “What you call me before, after
, and during is up to you.”
“And how do I know you’ll make good on that promise?” he asked after a moment, his gaze intent.
“You don’t, Avi.” She smiled. “Wondering what it’ll be like if it ever happens is just half the fun.”
*
March—Evening
Austin, Texas
W E S L E Y
Seven o’clock rolled around. Wes silenced the alarm he’d programmed into his phone before dialing.
“Wyatt Residence.”
“Hey there, Hannah.” Wes smiled. “How’s the prettiest woman in Texas doing tonight?”
A chuff of laughter came from Hannah Nelson, the closest thing to a mother that Sammy had ever known. “You’re one brick shy of a load if you think I’m buying that line, Wesley Elliott.”
“Jesus strike me down if I’m a liar,” Wes declared before pausing a beat. “See? I’m still here, so I ain’t lyin’.”
“You’re an incorrigible flirt and slicker than a boiled onion,” Hannah scolded, though he could hear the smile in her voice.
“So… How’s our girl?” Wes asked, pushing his notes across his desk as he leaned back in his chair and put his feet up. “Physio go alright today?”
“She overdid it again,” Hannah said with a frustrated sigh. “Her back cramped up so bad, Alejandro had to carry her upstairs while she cussed up a storm. The therapist kept telling her to slow it down, and she wouldn’t listen.”
Wes shook his head. “When is that therapist gonna realize he’ll be more successful getting socks on a rooster than telling Sam Wyatt what to do?”
“She gets it from her daddy,” Hannah replied tartly. “Reminds me of Rob more every day.”
“Don’t tell her that,” he remarked.
“Oh, I know better.”
Wes paused, hoping Hannah would have some good news for him tonight. “So you think she’ll talk to me?”
“Why don’t you call her and see?”
Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three Page 9
