“What?”
“His number is—”
“I have his number. Don’t move.”
He didn’t respond. Slow breath in. Slow breath out. Slow my pulse. Slow my heart rate.
“I only have one phone. I could ask Dav—”
“No. Hang up. Call Jared.”
This place was deserted enough. He’d parked away from other cars and the building. He would wait with his thoughts, until Jared and God knows what army showed up to get him out of this hot seat.
“Wait. Nic?” Wait? What the fuck was his problem? What did he want to say anyway? Maybe he needed more oxygen to his brain. The line was dead anyway. She’d disconnected. “I’ll miss you, sweet girl.” Except she wasn’t there to hear it.
* * *
Jared’s blacked-out, chromed-up Expedition screamed into the parking lot a long-assed thirty-five minute wait later followed by two similar looking vehicles. No lights and sirens. Thank God Nic’d listened and let Titan take care of this situation in-house. No police, no freakin’ FBI profilers nosing into the who and why in search of a motive.
For a Saturday night, the Granville was empty. Maybe that’s why’d he stopped in for a brewski and pizza. As company went, Cash was of the worst variety. He was pissed off, angry at the world, and more than he wanted to admit it, hurt. Here in the Podunk bar, he’d had no worries about the ladies. They’d all shown up on the back of their men’s Fat Boys and certainly weren’t looking for a piece of action like him.
The Expedition door opened, and out stepped a grizzly of a man. After surveying the parking lot, Jared marched toward Cash’s truck, seemingly unfazed that Cash likely had C-4 strapped to his ass.
“Don’t move,” Jared said through the half-open window.
He didn’t move his head. “No shit. Thanks for the survival tip.”
“Ass. I was neck deep in two broads until this shit popped up. We’ll put this in the you-owe-me-huge column.”
Cash would’ve laughed if he could. If his life weren’t on the line and all, it’d be funny shit to pull his boss out of a three way. Knowing Jared, he probably took Nic’s call mid-fuck, then pulled up dick and walked out. No way he had the ladies at his place. No way he said, “thanks, see ya later.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Cash saw Jared duck down out of view. Time ticked by. There was definitely something attached to the undercarriage if it took that long to inspect. Finally, Jared stood, turned around, and waved toward the two unfamiliar vehicles.
“You’re not going to like this. I’d guess the secondary’s set on a pressure switch, so you can move your head. But don’t move from your torso down. I mean it.”
“Yeah—”
“I suggest you at least turn your head and compartmentalize your shit before you accidently blow up. And it’s not like I have another sniper on standby, so do me that favor. I’ve got you booked for a while.”
Cash turned his head a fraction and caught a glimpse of a man. Are you fuckin’ kidding me? “No—”
“Shut up, Garrison.”
Towel boy? There was no mistaking that pretty boy face and shiner beating feet toward his truck. From the neck down, the man was in bomb tech gear, helmet in hand. Cash wanted to rage, but he forced his muscles to obey. “What the—”
“You had Nic call. She said she knew a guy, then gave me a rundown of your day. I’m concerned that you’re stupid enough to move. Don’t. Rocco and Brock are out on a job tonight, so I didn’t have a choice. Plus, from the sound of it, he’s one of the best in the world. Your lucky night.” Jared shrugged, not looking concerned enough to back away from the truck. “I’ll hold both your hats if you want to go to blows after this shit is over.”
Towel boy arrived next to his door and stood three feet away. The urge to kill was a live wire. Live through this and it was game on. Kill or be killed, although towel boy might be slightly harder to take down if he expected an attack.
Jared gestured to the man. “Jackson, here you go. Don’t kill my boy, or I’ll kill you. Slowly.” With that, his boss stepped aside, and Jackson, AKA towel boy, stepped up to the window.
“Don’t worry. I don’t want to be here either, asshole,” Jackson said. “Don’t move.”
Christ, would people stop telling him that? The bulky, bombproof hat went on, and Jackson disappeared down the side of the truck. This guy might kill him on purpose. He’d think about it if he were him.
Dude popped back up and spoke through the plastic vent near his mouth. “Not an amateur.”
“Nice update,” Cash snarled. It could be good or bad. Good, meaning no fucked up wiring mistakes would blow after it was disengaged. Bad, meaning that disengaging wasn’t going to be easy-peasy. His pizza would def be cold when he got home. One disappointment after another today, all of varying importance. Large to small.
“You’re an ass,” Jackson replied, studying his wheelbase.
“What are you going to do about it, Jackson?” Maybe he should tone down the I-might-punch-you-again voice. It’d probably increase his chance of living to the next fist fight.
“An ‘I’m sorry, I’m a dick’ would go a long way.”
Cash moved his glance another slight turn. “I may kill you when this is over, so maybe you want to walk away.”
“And disappoint Nic? Not after she asked so sweetly that I save your sorry ass.”
Anger swelled in his fists. It took a significant amount of energy to compartmentalize. Cash took a short breath in through his nose and let it slide out his lips.
Jackson continued. “I’m going to open your door and see what we’re dealing with in here. Stay as still as possible.”
Cash rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Got it. Jesus Christ. I won’t move. The last thing he wanted was towel boy between his legs. Worst day ever. He had to will his knee to stay in place and away from Jackson’s pie hole. Nothing good would happen from knocking him out again.
Maybe later.
The door opened, and Jackson poked around under his legs. Wasn’t this a little uncomfortable? Dude’s fucking bubble hat kept touching his calf. Half a minute later, the guy stood next to him.
“Don’t—”
Cash smirked. “Move. Got it.”
“The pressure detonator is the problem. The ignition detonator malfunctioned and isn’t an issue,” Jackson grumbled. “I’d rather get you out than try to diffuse it.”
“Meaning?”
“Your truck’s gonna blow.”
“Prick.” Cash swore a line of curses. “You’re doing this on purpose. Aren’t you?” If Jared wasn’t actively ignoring him, he’d offer his willingness to wait for Brock or Rocco.
“It’s a truck.”
“Are you even a man?” Cash asked, annoyed on so many levels.
Jackson looked ready to walk away. He turned, caught sight of Jared, and turned back to Cash. “Look. We do this, and we both go home with less of a headache than we already have.”
“It’s just under my seat?”
“Huh?”
“The pressure plate. It’s only triggered by a shift in my weight?”
“Yes. Look, man. You’re tempting fate for both of us as long as we both sit here and dick around.”
“Grab my rifle and pizza.”
“Excuse me?”
“Get the goddamn rifle and the pizza, and I will do whatever you want.”
Jackson stood silent, eyes narrowing. “Nic owes me. Man, does she owe me.” He walked around, carefully opened the door, grabbed the rifle case, then the pizza. He put the case down, and chucked the pizza into a nearby parking space. Asshole.
At least the gun survived. That gun signified his whole world.
After speaking into a mic, Jackson came back to Cash’s door. Two men got out of the third vehicle, both in their bombproof moon suits.
“Now what?”
Jackson pointed at the men. “Now, they pull your ass out while I hold down the sensor and try to disengage it without hurting yo
ur precious vehicle.”
All right. At least the asshole had a plan. Jared took one large step back. Okay, then. The plan must not be one hundred percent foolproof.
One man held what looked like a lead blanket, the other grasped his arm. Jackson knelt by his knee. They gave signals, someone gave a countdown. “Three, two—” and a noise. A beep. A roar. Blast!
Garrison’s Creed: Chapter Twenty-Three
David drummed his fingers inside the pocket of his Armani tuxedo pants. The impeccable tailoring was only one of the many reasons he looked ready to waltz Nicola into this gala, if she’d ever show up. She was late by at least twenty-five minutes. He waited in his chauffeured Rolls for her to grace him with her unrefined presence.
But he was refined. Refined manners. Refined looks. His high cheek bones and sculpted nose were perfect, all healed from his scuffle with the exception of fading bruises covered by makeup. He had aristocratic bone structure, bless his mother for that, and his father’s conniving skills allowed him to float in and out of this world, dripping in diamonds and silk, without so much as a hiccup.
He’d absolutely been born into the wrong class of people, and as luck would have it, he was corruptible. Moral flexibility was a wonderful characteristic to have, once he’d learned how profitable it could be. David hadn’t even known that about himself when he’d started at the CIA. They didn’t see it in his profile. Surprise, surprise.
Maybe Nicola was late because everything on the home front was going according to plan. Mister Nero would be thrilled, and David would love to see the look on her face once she learned her parents had been blown sky high.
He’d tacked the blond cowboy on as an added bonus. Had that fool cracked his jawbone in their scuffle, David might’ve considered letting the Gianori mob take their time with his demise. Regardless, the guy had to die, and a bomb would do the trick. David was too powerful, had too many connections to let some wild-West blowhard get away with hitting him.
Funny, he thought, how he now bartered and traded outside of currency. The better things in life couldn’t be paid for out of Cayman Island bank accounts.
After David found out the how and why of Nicola’s background—that the Gianori Mob wanted her head—his plan fell into place. He knew Mister Nero wanted Nicola for infiltrating Smooth Enterprises as a CIA operative, even if she was ineffective. Mister Nero had preached the power of retaliation and could not wait to take her parents. An eye for an eye. Bloodshed for bloodshed.
The Gianori mob wanted Nicola because the mob never forgets. He promised her to the mob only if they could complete two tasks. The first was Mister Nero’s: blow up the parents. The second was his: take out the cowboy.
There’d be no way to connect the parents’ demise to him, and the mob would never be able to find him once he handed Nicola to Mister Nero. The Gianori clan would be shit out of luck, but it wasn’t his problem. The CIA had trained him well. David could disappear into a crowd of one, and they’d never find him.
This was a new way of doing business and, thus far, it worked out beautifully. David chuckled at his ingenuity.
A flurry of black silk and chiffon caught his eye, and he stared out the window. Nicola was a beautiful woman. She looked rushed. Worried. A pleased smile dripped across his face. The explosions must’ve been a success. Parents and cowboy, check.
The worry washed away when she slipped in through the chauffeur-opened door. It wasn’t his imagination. It had been there.
“Michael,” she crooned in front of the chauffeur before he shut the door. Nicola leaned over and kissed his cheek. It was a very appropriate response for an untimely wife. “I apologize for my tardiness.”
The chauffeur slid into the driver’s seat, and the Rolls began to glide toward their destination a block away. “But of course, Sarah Beth. You look stunning, as always.”
She did present a nice picture. Gorgeous woman, really. When Mister Nero finished with her, if she was still alive and relatively unmarked, he might keep her for himself.
* * *
Nicola swirled the Dom Perignon in the crystal champagne flute. Slimy David had had his hand at the small of her back all night long, and it was pure training that kept her from removing it from his body and handing it to a waiter to take out with the caviar-covered trash.
“Is something wrong, sweetheart? You look tense.”
Yeah. You keep touching me, and I want to vomit. “Of course not, Michael.” To be this man’s wife would be torture. His fingers were both cold and sweaty. How was that possible? If he dragged them over her Pucci gown one more time, she was sending him the dry cleaning bill. That was, before he was taken to a federal pen for espionage.
“Perhaps a massage is in order when we arrive at the hotel.”
Do not gag. She repeated it several times. A massage wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted, no hell, she needed information.
It was too early in the night to step out of this party. She wanted to excuse herself and hit redial again and again until someone answered. She’d tried to call Cash a hundred times before this godforsaken gala. Each time, she got voicemail. She’d called Jackson and Jared. No one answered.
In the background, the orchestra struck up another slow number, and she glared off David’s invitation for a waltz.
Thinking about the unanswered calls made her pulse race. Something must have happened to Cash. What if Jackson didn’t get there in time? Or if the blast took them both out? And where the hell was Jared?
Since their arrival in Istanbul, Nicola had slipped several more listening devices onto David and his belongings. If he’d found any of them, the bastard hadn’t given it away. Maybe Cash was at home, listening to all their conversations, listening for dirt when she wasn’t in the room with David.
That had to be it.
Cash wasn’t going to die in a car bomb. He wasn’t. He played life too fast and furious to be taken out sitting on his ass outside some bar.
Life was not fair. She should know that better than anyone.
His voice replayed in her head a thousand times, and her head spun. She threw down the rest of her bubbly, impatiently waiting for their assets to show up. Soon as this gig was done, she was pulling David out and flagging down the nearest Learjet back to the States.
“Sarah Beth, darling.” David’s voice had a serious ick factor. “I believe we’re on.”
The target couple stood dead ahead, living replicas of the pictures in Nicola’s briefing book. Wonderful timing. The assets greeted their marks, two men who looked up-to-their-mustaches in selling stolen third-world secrets. Everyone was in place. Show time.
Nicola raised a bejeweled hand and called over in her haughtiest voice. “Frederick? Elizabeth? Is that you?” She walked gracefully toward the foursome with David in tow. He too murmured their cover names. “It is them. How delightful.”
Frederick and Elizabeth smiled. The woman waved hello. Emeralds glittered from her bouffant to her pedicure. “Oh, it’s the Penningtons. From New York.”
The man turned to their companions and started introductions. Something about how the Penningtons made their supposed loot in the chemical market. Something vague enough to be untraceable.
Elizabeth kissed her cheek. “Sarah Beth, I didn’t expect you!”
“We made an unanticipated stop. Mallory had a European qualifier in her show jumping competition, and since the jet was fueled and we were so close…” Nicola shrugged a silk-covered shoulder as elegantly as she could. That was the extent of her lines. Time for David to shine.
Nic glanced at him. He was on a roll. This was his type of work, hobnobbing and schmoozing. How boring, especially when real life waited for her thousands of miles away. At least she hoped it was life waiting and not a soul-wrenching obituary.
Garrison’s Creed: Chapter Twenty-Four
Their minor assignment was a success. Nicola and David were back at the hotel, and her room was packed. Nothing left in her closet, designer or otherwise. The L
ouis Vuitton bags rested by the door, awaiting a bellhop. Having a jet on standby was convenient, but they both had to agree to leave. The bag brigade was nothing more than an effort to convince David they were leaving tonight, but he wasn’t budging.
At least she’d kicked him out of the bedroom to one of the smaller adjoining rooms. Nic swept the room for bugs, set up her signal jammer as a just-in-case backup, and thought about getting the hell out of Istanbul so that someone could give her some intel. All she needed to know was that everyone was alive and kicking. That Cash didn’t blow up in his truck.
Ring. She lunged across the room, catapulting across the king size bed to grab the phone. She didn’t look at the screen, only accepted the call and prayed for good news.
“Nic.” The sound of Cash’s voice hugged her tightly, making her believe in the power of desperate prayers.
“Thank you!” she cried, realizing that tears streamed down her face. “Cash, you’re okay. Oh God. You’re okay.”
Her breaths surfaced, rapid fire. All of the pent up emotions boiled into a fierce mess of wet tears, running down her cheeks. She sniffled and rambled without the slightest clue what she said.
“Slow down.” He paused. “I’m okay.”
The words didn’t work. Tears raced down her cheeks, blurring her vision. Her mind sped, swirling into an anxious frenzy. “I thought this is how we were going to end,” she whispered. “That you wouldn’t be there when I came home. That I left and lost you once. That you died tonight, and I lost you—”
“Who’s Jackson?” The sharp-tipped question sobered her from the nightmare of possible bomb blast causes and effects.
“What?” She shook her head, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand. Jackson? This morning seemed years ago. Had that really happened?
“Tell me a lie, and I swear to God, sweet girl. You will lose me. No explosive charge needed.”
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