Strike Force

by Beth Rhodes

  It was time to let him go before things got complicated.

  Hawk Elite had gotten her so close to her goal she had it in her hands today.

  But she couldn’t drag them any further through her clear-as-mud family tradition.

  Not unless she wanted to truly hate herself.

  ***

  “I still think we should call Hawk,” Malcolm argued. After their lovely dinner with Mr. Lecherous, even being back at the hotel wasn’t going to put his mind at ease.

  When they reached their room, and he closed to the door behind them, she was already toeing off her boots and undoing the sexy-as-hell leather belt with the big looping chain he could hear like bells as she moved away from him.

  “Come on, Malcolm,” Marie said in a tone that skirted the line between begging and exasperated. She turned as if she had no reservations and was unbuttoning her shirt, which was probably fine, since she did have some kind of little tank under the blouse. “Then you can go home.” The shirt dropped. “And I can—”

  “Fuck.” He moved over to her, gripped her waist, and planted his mouth over hers, swallowing her words. A mistake. An impulse. A need…so deep, so dark.

  She went from lax to tense before she opened her mouth to his, and—Lord, have mercy—captured his tongue with hers. Her arms came up around his neck. She circled him, pressing her sweet body against his.

  Stop, he told himself.

  Like hell, the demon on his shoulder whispered back. And his hands caged her in, braced her torso and slid down to her hips, the soft curve of her rear end. He groaned as arousal slammed into him.

  Stop, he told himself again.

  And it was Dimitru’s leering face that made him curse and slowly—oh so slowly—break things off. “Don’t talk,” he whispered, out of breath, heart pounding. His hands lingered at her slim waist, the tips of his fingers, touching the bare flesh above her skirt. “I need to check for listening devices.”

  Her hair tickled his face as he spoke into her ear. God, she smelled good. So good. A brief kiss below her earlobe, and he let go of her. He crossed to his canvas duffel and dug for the detection wand.

  He started in the bathroom and found one under the toilet seat. Into the main part of the room, he found one attached under the sink and two more—one on a lamp and another blended in with the black of the mini-fridge. He took all of them to the bathroom and put them on the top of the toilet, then turned on the shower and closed the curtain.

  On his way out, he shut the door.

  “Time to go,” he declared, confident the water and fan would cover up their departure. Abruptly, yes, but he was about done being a patsy. Done feeling out of control of the situation. He picked up his stuff and started packing. She stood there, staring at him. “Move it, Feur. We’re not staying here. We’re going to find a quiet little place where you and I can have a little heart-to-heart.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, a flush still on her cheeks, a dazed look still in her eyes.

  “Not that kind,” he said. “We’ll use words this time.”

  The pout on her pretty mouth almost made him smile.

  After going back to the bathroom to turn off the water, he stood by the door, waiting for her as she re-donned her clothes. He appreciated she didn’t ask questions. It wasn’t obedience from her, though. He wasn’t a fool.

  He had to suspect she definitely knew more than she let on.

  She wasn’t any happier about being in Dimitru’s crosshairs than he.

  In the lobby, when Marie went toward the desk as if to check out, Malcolm grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the exit. Before exiting, he slowed and watched the street. One minute. Two. Three. And then he saw two things. The man across the road, who’d been smoking on the corner, moved and stepped down onto the street as a limo pulled up. He opened the front passenger door and climbed in.

  The limo drove away down the street. But was he gone or would he be back?

  Two minutes later, Malcolm finally glanced over at Marie.

  She was as still as he, quiet and watching. Her instincts were some of the best on the team. For a woman with no military or agency training before Hawk, he was impressed.

  Women he’d dated before never would have stood for so long without breaking the silence.

  Instead of leaving, and tipping Dimitru off, Malcolm put an arm over Marie’s shoulder and walked toward the front desk. “Play along, okay?”

  Much better to know the bad guys were where they could see them.

  She must have been getting used to his excuses to touch her, because she smiled and grabbed the hand that hung off her shoulder.

  Malcolm leaned in against the chest-high marble counter to talk to the new desk lady. “I need a room for two,” he said, handing over his credit card. “Fourth floor, if you’ve got it.”

  The woman typed away at her computer. “You’re in luck. I have one room left on the fourth floor.”

  He smiled down into Marie’s face and winked. “It’s our lucky night, snookie.”

  She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, babycakes.”

  The lady at the desk watched them, so Malcolm shrugged. “We stayed here for our honeymoon. We’re trying to rekindle the spark.”

  The woman’s inane smile conveyed the universal I-don’t-give-a-shit message as she handed over the new key cards.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  For the second time today, he led Marie to the elevators and up to the fourth floor.

  This time, Marie seemed a good bit more nervous.

  When he opened the door, not far from their old room, he silently cursed. One bed.

  “At least it’s a king-size.” She walked in and dropped her bag on the floor.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think to ask for a room with two beds.”

  “It would have blown our cover. Besides, it’s one night. We slept closer than this in Qatar when we were on the run.”

  Exactly. Qatar was when his thoughts had crossed that line to admiration and desire. With admiration and desire came way more than he wanted to deal with, especially with a woman like Marie.

  He had no doubt in his mind that when she got what she really wanted, she’d be gone.

  Chapter Seven

  He would have bugged anyone’s room, Marie told herself.

  Dimitru’s distrust had nothing to do with her.

  But as she and Malcolm settled for the second time, she got a funny feeling she might be lying to herself…and, by default, lying to Malcolm. She wasn’t afraid to lie. She’d done it before to protect her family. She would do so now if it protected Malcolm from the likes of Dimitru.

  Malcolm couldn’t be held responsible for things he didn’t even know about.

  “I’m going to make a quick phone call to Benson over at West Coast Security,” he said, startling her out of her reverie and making her look up at him. He sounded tired. “Then I’ll get a shower.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Don’t go anywhere. And be ready to talk when I get out. Got it? Stay,” he said, pointing at her.

  She barked, which made him roll his eyes as he turned away, his shoulders way more slumped than she’d ever seen. Afraid she’d brought on his fatigue, she sighed and pulled out her phone.

  “Hi, Uncle Bert,” she said when her uncle picked up.

  “Marie, Bună ziua. Ce mai faci?”

  “I’m fine. Excited to see you.”

  “I’ve been following you on that phone thing you showed me. My word, isn’t it clever? I can turn my phone on, and voila, there you are. A little dot on the phone. If we’d had that when—” He cut himself off, but she knew he was thinking about her parents on the road the night they’d died. “Anyway. It’s a good thing, because I saw you were at Vladimir’s house today. I liked knowing you left.”

  Marie grinned, grateful for her uncle’s concern. It was still weird he was tracking her, but that was part of their deal until this thing with Dimitru was finished. “I like knowing you’ve got
my back, but you have to stay out of it this time, Uncle Bert. Promise me. I’ll take care of the armband.”

  His silence wasn’t reassuring.

  “Please,” she begged. “I’ve got this.”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you. And I promise, before the weekend is over, I’ll have the whole armband thing figured out.” The water in the bathroom turned off. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “See ya soon, baby.”

  Marie smiled at his endearment and the excitement curled around those words.

  It had been too long, almost a year since Dimitru stole the armband from her uncle, and a good nine months since Uncle Bert’s short visit before she’d gone with Hawk Elite to Qatar. He’d insisted on coming out to North Carolina to see her, and she hadn’t had the heart to discourage him from coming. Not when it had been so close to the anniversary of her parents’ deaths. “Te iubesc, Uncle Bert.”

  As she hung up, she heard whistling from the bathroom, and it stopped her. Despite the carefree sound of whistling, she knew Malcolm was under pressure to do well, to prove the gunshot wound was a thing of the past and he was working at a hundred percent.

  And she knew he was suspicious of her employment with Hawk Elite…

  After this afternoon, he was probably ready to fire her, even if he didn’t have the clout to do so.

  She sighed. Twenty-four hours. That was how much time she had left.

  The worst of it all was this feud between the two families had gone on for so long that she had always been fairly certain the armband in her uncle’s possession would be reacquired at some point in the future. It had gone back and forth four times in her life. From the Dimitru family to hers the year she was born, back to the Dimitru family the year her parents died…

  Albert had exacted revenge and reacquired it during her sophomore year of high school, and then a year ago, Dimitru had gotten his grubby hands on it again.

  “Have you figured it out?”

  She sucked in a breath and turned, annoyed with herself for being lost in thought, for the past creeping up on her and smothering her in self-doubt. She rolled her shoulders, shook it off, and glanced Malcolm’s way. Only to be stopped by him in nothing but a towel around his waist. He had tattoos covering his right shoulder, arm, and partly down his side, and he made a part of her ache inside to see him. But it was the grisly scar over his chest that had her heart thumping double time.

  “Are you doing that on purpose?” she asked, lifting a brow, ignoring his question.

  “What?”

  “Walking around half-naked. Kissing me, but not really kissing me to kiss me. Acting protective and macho.”

  His lips twitched.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I have done all of those things on purpose. Yes. Well, except the macho part. Do you think it’s macho? And by macho, do you mean something bad?”

  She scowled.

  “So,” he said, redirecting her back to his inquiry, “have you figured it out?”

  “Figured out what?” she asked.

  “What to tell me.” Malcolm walked by her. He smelled good. In her head, she had to admit, she’d wanted him for a long time, and despite the disappointment of how this business trip was going so far, she didn’t mind she’d ended up with him…instead of one of the other guys.

  “I’ll tell you everything I can.”

  “Everything.”

  “I can,” she added with a shrug. “I’m sorry.”

  He stared at her for a minute then lifted a finger and wagged it in a circle.

  She huffed and turned around, even if she didn’t believe he was modest, and listened as he rummaged through his bag. The soft swish of clothing and then, “I’m done.” He’d pulled on a pair of skinny jeans and a flannel. He was dragging a laptop from his familiar messenger bag and an iPad and headphones, wireless mouse.

  “Jiminy Cricket, is that one of our network boxes?”

  “I don’t like hooking up to open networks.”

  “And I thought we were going to get a good night’s sleep and then do a job tomorrow.”

  “When you say a job, it makes me think we’re planning the next bank robbery.” In minutes, he had all his stuff working and was accessing the same screens she saw every day in his office back at headquarters.

  She laughed nervously. “Why?” She walked to the window and stood off to the side to glance out of it, then turned to look at him. In work mode, he was bent over the desk, yet, amazingly, as if he’d trained himself, there was still a straight line from his neck to the small of his back.

  He had great posture. Which was a weird thing to be attracted to, she knew.

  He looked over his shoulder, piercing her with those crazy, intense eyes. “Talk.”

  “I think we should go in and steal his collection tonight,” she said, going for point blank. Hoping to make him laugh? Which he didn’t. Instead, his chair creaked as he turned fully toward her, his elbows resting on the arms.

  “Just kidding,” she finished, inwardly rolling her eyes, wondering if she would ever get a good laugh out him. They were few and far between, and definitely never when she was around. “Did you get a hold of Dimitru’s former security company?”

  He scowled. “Not funny. And no. Left a message.”

  “You know this feels like a cluster, and we haven’t even done anything yet. Stupid dinner, so he could show off. Why?”

  “Lots of guys need to show off.”

  She laughed. “Like overcompensating for something much less impressive?” A blush rose on her cheeks as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

  Malcolm’s mouth twitched and he cleared his throat. “Or something. Guys like that, with lots of money and a need for power—” He broke off and stood to pace the length of the room, toward the bathroom and back again. “I really don’t like to be kept in the dark, Marie.”

  Shit. When he spoke, point blank, she felt trapped. As much stealing as she’d done in her life, she’d left dishonesty behind. And if it weren’t for Uncle Bert and this feud with the Dimitru family, she wouldn’t be here right now.

  Honesty.

  Stick to the truth as much as possible. Uncle Bert’s voice rang in her head.

  “Marie.” The low, threatening tone of his voice sent butterflies through her stomach.

  “Vladimir Dimitru isn’t a complete stranger,” she finally said.

  His eyes slowly closed on a long, indrawn breath, and he leaned back in the chair, his hands automatically following the movement and resting on top of his head. “You don’t say.”

  “I’ve never met him,” she continued. “He doesn’t know me. It’s… Um, our families have had this thing going between us for over a hundred years.”

  “Like backyard barbecues?”

  “Ha. Uh, no. More like a feud.”

  “Aw, geez.” Malcolm rose and went to close the curtains, paused before they closed all the way, then, clearing his throat, jerked them shut.

  Okay, that was weird.

  She frowned, wondering what was behind curtain number one.

  “So, you’re engaged in a centuries-old feud? What the hell for?”

  There was no help for her curiosity, so she went to the window.

  “You might—” he started, but she looked out, her eyes immediately drawn to the same building she’d seen from their previous room. Light filled the glass-topped ceiling, revealing an extremely naked, embracing couple on what had to be the living room couch.

  Pulling the curtains shut, she sucked in a breath and let it out on a laugh. “Well”—she cleared her throat—“interesting.”

  He snickered, which surprised her. He was usually so stoic. And it softened her, his need for honesty. “Look. My uncle asked me to check on the Dimitru clan, which led me to Hawk Elite last year—” Only a partial lie.

  “Which led you to stalking Hawk like a thief in the night, you mean. Do I even need the word ‘like’ in there? You failed, except you caught Hawk’s at
tention, and he’s got this soft spot for down-on-their-luck strays like you, so, all of a sudden, you have a job.”

  “He had a need for someone who could acquire things, who could get in and out of small places.” Her argument landed on disbelieving ears, though. “Are you questioning Hawk’s leadership?”

  “No.” The one word struck her like a physical blow. Malcolm took a step toward her, the look of anger in his eyes making her step back. He halted and scowled. “I don’t like being in the dark. You’re keeping me in the dark. I would never question Hawk. It’s you I don’t trust.”

  Her shoulders fell. She deserved that. He thought he knew her. They hadn’t met in the best of circumstances. If he really knew her—

  She cut off the thought. He would still only see her as the thief.

  But they had to work together for one more day, so she cleared her throat and approached him. His gaze turned wary as she took his hand. The touch shocked her; his hands were filled with tension, but they were warm, large, and unexpectedly soft in her own. She opened his palm and ran her fingertips across the lines there, remembering how her mother used to do the same to her when she was a kid, pretending to read her future.

  Her mother hadn’t read the loss of herself from Marie’s life, though. Marie’s throat tightened on the unexpected emotional throwback.

  “I swear to you I mean no trouble for this job tomorrow.” Her insides hurt a little, but maybe this was best, because she’d known all along, as soon as she got the armband back, that she would have to leave Hawk Elite. “When we’re done with this job, if it means that much to you, I’ll leave Hawk Elite.”

  He closed his fist and pulled it out of her grasp, leaving her bereft and decidedly unsettled. But her heart took his silence as a sign of hope.

  Stupid.

  ***

  Fog covered the street as the slow-moving van drove by. His heart pounded, beating against his sternum and making the scar on his chest ache. The eerie silence shifted as the sound of a helicopter thumped through the air. The full-on drum of rotors vibrated his innards and then faded as it flew over.