by Cindy Dees
“Well, that’s that,” her brother announced. “I guess I don’t get to come home with you today.”
“What’s going on? I’m not a little kid anymore, Max. After everything you’ve put me through these past few months, you owe me the truth.”
“Not now,” he muttered.
The door slid open behind them, and Hank whirled around to face a man with silver hair and crow’s-feet that belied his athletic build. He wore a golf shirt and crisply pressed khakis...and a black leather shoulder holster holding a snub-nosed Makarov pistol.
“Who’s this, Maximillian? Wait—don’t I know you?” the man said to her in Russian. “Yes. You’re that waitress from the Who Do Voodoo club in New Orleans.”
Hank caught the faint eye roll of disgust her brother shot her, but said politely to the man in English, “Hello. My name is Hank. Have I seen you before? You look familiar.” She’d pretended not to know Russian at the Voodoo, and her gut told her to keep up the charade here, too.
The man turned to Max and spoke in rapid Russian. “Vitaly used her to keep an eye on the arms dealer. She was hanging all over the man last time I saw them together.”
Max’s eyebrows shot up. Then he answered in Russian, “This is my little sister, Evgeniya Hankova.”
“And she speaks no Russian?” the man exclaimed in surprise. The guy still spoke in his Russian tongue, but she vaguely recalled from the club that he spoke English, too.
“She hasn’t heard the language or used it since she was very young. Unlike me, she spent little time around our father after our parents separated. My mother refused to speak Russian after the divorce.”
“Ahh. A shame your father let Deena get out of control like that.”
Max shrugged. “My mother was a stubborn woman. Acclimated a little too much to American culture.”
“Still. Look what happened to the daughter. Your father should have kept a firmer hand on them both.”
“She’s my problem, now, Remi. I’ll keep her in line.”
Narrowing his eyes disapprovingly, the Russian reminded Max, “She didn’t look in line when she was sashaying around half-naked and throwing herself at that American.”
“I’ll have a talk with her about it. If Vitaly put her on the guy to watch him, though, wouldn’t it make sense that she was sticking to him like glue?”
“She didn’t have to like it so much,” Remi snapped.
Fascinated by the exchange, Hank had to work actively to keep her face passive and her eyes blank. Max knew, of course, that she was fluent in Russian. Interesting that he’d chosen not to give away her knowledge of the tongue. Games within games were afoot here, apparently.
“Have you eaten breakfast, Hank?” Max asked her abruptly in English.
“No,” she replied docilely. No need to tick off the raging chauvinist Russian dude by making a sarcastic comment about haring off into the bayou in the middle of the night because some guy had called with a message from her missing brother.
“Will you join us, Remi?” Max asked courteously in English.
“No. You two catch up. I have places to go. People to see.” Hah. The man was as fluent in English as he was in Russian.
“The meeting is at nine tonight,” Max reminded him.
“I know. I know. I’ll be here.” A quick switch to Russian. “And then we’ll see if this American of your sister’s is real or dead.”
Hank’s entire being stiffened. Were they talking about Ashe? What did Remi mean, real or dead? That sounded ominous. With great difficulty, she released a pent-up breath and even managed a wan smile at the silver-haired Russian.
“I’m going to have some food brought up, sis, and we can eat it on deck. And you can tell me about this American guy you’ve been making a spectacle of yourself with in New Orleans.”
Remi harrumphed and excused himself from the room. The same guy who’d tied up her boat brought in a tray of steaming scrambled eggs, bacon and stewed tomatoes. They were just sitting down at a table to eat it when a sleek cigarette boat roared away from the dock with Remi at the wheel. Tension visibly eased from her brother’s shoulders.
“Who’s that?” she asked Max.
He spared a brief glance at the guy laying out their breakfast and murmured, “A business associate. No need to concern yourself over him.”
“Oh...okay.” She shrugged casually and took a seat across from Max. The door slid shut, leaving them alone on deck again. Pasting a smile on her face, she asked lightly, “What’s up, bro? Talk to me or I’m calling my friends.”
“Don’t make any calls from the boat,” Max responded sharply. He took a bite of eggs and mumbled around it without moving his lips, “All transmissions are monitored.”
“Are you tangled up in the mob?” she asked back, sotto voce.
“It’s complicated. I’m sorry I dragged you out here and got you in the middle of it. I was hoping you’d bring the cavalry with you.”
“Is the American you were talking about with Remi a big, dark-haired guy named Ashe?”
“If he’s an arms dealer, yes. That’s the guy.”
“And he’s coming here tonight for a meeting?” Hank asked.
“Yup.”
She grinned. “Then your cavalry’s coming after all.”
Staring at her intently, Max barely breathed, “Who is he?”
“US military. Special ops.”
Max swore under his breath. “You don’t mess around, do you, little sister?”
She smiled broadly. “Not where my big brother is concerned.”
He just shook his head. “I don’t know if Remi will want you at the meeting tonight. If he does, I need you to play dumb like nobody’s business. It’s your best defense. I’ll do whatever I can to convince Remi and his buddies that you know nothing.”
“About what?”
“About anything. About tonight’s deal. About the Voodoo operation. About the whole organization.”
“Why would Remi want me at this meeting of yours?”
“Leverage,” Max replied grimly.
“Against Ashe?”
A nod. “He’s planning to use you as a hostage to ensure that your boyfriend delivers what he promised.”
“Or else what?” Hank asked in alarm. She knew darn well that Ashe would not hand over actual weapons to a bunch of Russian mobsters, even to save her life.
Would she and Ashe both be killed? Oh, dear. This was not good. Not good at all.
* * *
“I don’t like this, Frosty,” Ashe muttered. “I’m telling you. I don’t think Hank is part of the setup. I think they’re using her as bait to lure me in.”
“They don’t need bait. You’re already scheduled to walk in their front door tonight.”
“Insurance, then. Maybe they want to be positive that I’ll come.”
“Then why hasn’t someone called you to let you know they’ve got her and that she’s at the boat waiting for you?”
“I don’t know. I just know what my gut’s telling me.”
“Look. I know you like this girl. Maybe even a lot. But you’ve got to get your head in the game, Ashe. Logic doesn’t lie. She’s one of them.”
“How can you be so sure?” he bit out.
“Come on, Hollywood. Get with the program. Why else would she have fled in the middle of the night, stolen a vehicle and made her way down there? Not to mention, you didn’t tell her where the meeting is going to be. How else did she know if she’s not one of them?”
Ashe sighed. It didn’t help the roiling mess of nerves in his gut to have his boss voice aloud the very same possibilities he was thinking to himself.
“Set aside your feelings for her. She’s a target. Nothing more.”
Easy for Perriman to say. He hadn’t made love with her and bared his soul to her. And Ashe thought she’d bared her true feelings to him, too. But was all that a lie? Aloud, he said heavily, “I’ll try to distance myself from her.”
“I need you to do more than try, Hollywo
od. I have to know I can count you not to flake out on me. I can’t have you taking any stupid risks or going off script. Got it? You stick to the plan. That’s an order.”
Jeez. Cole Perriman pretty much never gave direct orders. His men respected him too much not to do exactly what the man politely requested of them. Ashe replied tightly, “I understand, sir.”
He might understand, but that did not mean he was going to comply with the order. It would cost him his career and maybe get him locked up in the brig—or killed—but he was not throwing Hank to the wolves. Period.
* * *
Hank wandered the ship, learning the passageways and paying an unintended visit to a compact but amazingly tricked-out kitchen—a galley, the guy cooking in it called it. She hung out on deck for most of the afternoon, napping in a shaded hammock. But mostly, she fretted about Ashe. Why hadn’t he called her when he discovered her missing? Did he believe his boss’s insinuations that her family was full of spies and maybe she was one of them?
As the sun dipped into the west and bled across the open water of the bayou, Max stepped outside to join her. He muttered softly, “You’re clear on tonight? You don’t understand Russian. If the deal goes down in English, you still don’t understand anything. Everyone who’ll be here tonight is dangerous and likely to be armed. But Remi’s the one to watch.”
“Why him in particular?”
“Because he’s a psychopath, sis. Won’t hesitate to shoot you for no good reason and won’t bat an eyelash doing it. Don’t draw his attention and don’t piss him off.”
“Umm, okay,” she mumbled, alarmed.
“If tonight’s meeting goes bad, get off the yacht, Hank. Jump over the side if you have to. Shrimp boats sail up and down the bayou all the time. You’ll be able to flag one down and make your way to safety.”
“I’m not leaving you behind,” she declared. “I lost you once. I’m not losing you again.”
“There’s a great deal more than meets the eye going on here. You have to do as I say. If I tell you to run, I need you to do it. No questions, no hesitation. Just go.”
“What is going on, Max? Just tell me once and for all. Are you involved with the mob?”
“Yes and no. I told you. It’s complicated. Promise you’ll run if I tell you to.”
She stared at him intently. Did she trust him? With her life? He was her big brother, after all. He’d always looked out for her in the past. Had set his life and his dreams on hold to care for their mother and then for her. The Max she knew would never do anything to hurt other people. He was an honorable guy. Decent. Kind. If he was tangled up with the mob, there was a reason for it. He might not be in a position to tell her, and goodness knew, he probably shouldn’t tell all while standing on a mob yacht that was en route to some sort of big mob powwow.
But at the end of the day, she trusted him. Deep in her gut, she was dead certain he would do the right thing. He and Ashe were a lot alike in that regard.
She nodded firmly. “If you tell me to run, I promise I’ll go.”
Max’s shoulders sagged in relief.
“However,” she added, “you’d better not go incommunicado with me again, or I’ll come looking for you again. And now I know where to look, buster.”
He grinned ruefully at her. “I’ll get in touch with you when I can. No more communication blackouts.”
She stepped forward to hug him. “Love you, bro.”
“Love you, sis.”
Max jerked away from her at the sound of a motorboat approaching at high speed. “That’ll be Remi and his crew. Remember, be invisible. Your life depends on it.”
Chapter 18
Ashe powered down the racing boat’s throttles, a little out of breath. The hull settled gently into the water, and the twin engines rumbled like contented lions. Holy cow, this baby could flat-out fly. He had to have been pushing a hundred miles per hour just now, and the boat had still been accelerating when he throttled back. Commander Perriman hadn’t been messing around when he told the powers-that-be at the naval air station to cough up the fastest boat they had for this operation.
Speaking of the operation, he needed to do a quick radio check out here in the bayou. He muttered, “One, two, three. Check. Check. How do you copy, anyone?”
Bastien’s voice crackled in his tiny earbud, “Loud and clear. How about me?”
“Loud and clear, Catfish.”
“You ready for this, Hollywood? Head in the game. Calm thoughts. Focus.”
Ashe appreciated Bastien’s concern. His former teammate knew how much Hank meant to him. Bastien, of all people, was also likeliest to suspect that Ashe had an alternate agenda of his own for tonight’s meeting.
He throttled down the powerboat even more. The vessel still barely touched the water as it skimmed across the open water. He’d opened her up out here at the north end of Bayou Rigolettes to get a feel for her, and he’d actually scared himself a little.
If it came down to a race tonight, he would win, hands down. Even captured drug-running boats he’d piloted before weren’t as muscular as this sleek lady. One of the keys to a successful hostage rescue was a good escape plan, and this vessel would make for a hell of an escape.
The second piece of a successful rescue was good intel on the location of the hostage. Hank’s phone hadn’t moved more than a few dozen feet all afternoon. She was definitely on the yacht, their satellite telemetry had revealed, along with a pile of Russian mobsters.
The last piece of a successful rescue was a clean insertion of the rescue team. They needed to get close to Hank undetected and then be prepared either to sneak her out by trickery and stealth...or to blast her out with surprise, superior firepower and overwhelming speed. He sincerely prayed the trickery-and-stealth route worked.
He glanced down at the wooden crate at his feet. It was packed with a sample of weapons from his supposed shipment that had just arrived in New Orleans.
A team of gunsmiths had spent all day modifying each of the semiautomatic rifles inside, carefully filing the firing pins so they would fail after firing approximately a hundred rounds. Conveniently, none of the extended clips included in the crate held more than fifty rounds. If tonight’s buyers wanted to take the weapons out for a test fire, the rifles should be fully functional. Should being the operative word. It was a risk to offer tampered weapons to criminals who were also gun experts. But the only legal alternative was to sell them completely inoperative weapons, and Ashe had been adamant that Vitaly and his associates would be far too knowledgeable for that to work.
Ideally, this crate of firearms would secure Hank’s release and get both of them off the yacht alive. He had no doubt that Vitaly’s bosses were holding Hank as a hostage to ensure his follow-through with this deal. How they knew he cared about her deeply enough for her to be an effective hostage, he had no idea. The fact remained that the bastards were right, though.
She’d blasted into his life like a hurricane, sweeping away everything that had come before and leaving him scrubbed clean. And she’d gone and filled the void with her joy and courage, her sexiness and stubborn loyalty. She was the perfect woman for him. Assuming she wasn’t a spy for the other side, of course. Hell, even then, she might just be his one true love.
“A high-speed vessel is docking beside the yacht now,” Jennie reported across the secure team frequency being piped into his ear. She was watching tonight’s op via live satellite feed. “I count twelve souls aboard the yacht. Hank plus eleven.”
Damn. They’d been hoping for no more than four or so. Ahh, well. They’d contingency-planned for this many hostiles. And the good Lord willing, it wouldn’t come down to a firefight, anyway.
But a sinking feeling in his gut warned him that a peaceful exit for him and Hank was unlikely to unfold.
“I have visual on Vitaly Parenko,” Jennie announced.
He winced, not thrilled to have to see the Russian again. Ashe had no way of knowing if Vitaly had pieced together the who an
d how of his safe being emptied.
Ashe glanced at his watch. He wasn’t due at the yacht for nearly another hour. Huh. Maybe the club owner wasn’t here to confront him after all. Maybe. Vitaly had been called on the carpet for losing all that money out of his safe.
“Have we got audio on the yacht?” he asked into the micro-microphone sewn into the collar of his shirt.
“Coming online momentarily,” Bastien replied. “Parabolic microphone is just being moved into position.”
This entire operation had been a huge scramble. Eight hours wasn’t even close to enough time to plan and launch a rescue mission, so he had to give Perriman credit for having pulled the whole thing together so quickly.
A new voice came up on the frequency. A female voice. “I have visual on Hank.”
Ashe had been surprised when Perriman’s pair of snipers turned out to be SEALs he’d worked with before—a guy named Ford Alambeaux...and a girl. A girl SEAL, to be more precise. Her name was Trina Zarkos, and Ford assured him that Trina was as badass as they came and a hell of a shooter.
Ashe got the distinct impression that Ford and Trina were more than just a shooting team. Sexual sparks flew between them every time they looked at each other, let alone got within arm’s length of one another.
Trina continued, “Hank is topside, on the foredeck. With a male matching the photograph of Maximillian Kuznetsov.”
Ashe felt a jolt of surprise. Hank’s brother was aboard the yacht? Could that mean she’d been in cahoots with him all along? Or was this some sort of reunion? Perhaps Max’s presence explained why she’d snuck off last night without a word of explanation to him. Now that he thought about it, that actually made logical sense. Ashe knew she would do pretty much anything to track down her brother. But did that include getting into bed with the Russian mob?
He bit out, “Can we get confirmation of the Kuznetsov ID?”
It took about sixty seconds, but Commander Perriman’s voice came over the radio very quietly. “Confirmed.”
Son of a gun. Well, didn’t that just complicate things all to hell? Of course, all missions had their share of monkey wrenches, and they were what his SEAL team trained for by the hundreds of hours. But Max’s appearance was a giant wrench in the gears of this op, and the mission hadn’t even gotten rolling yet.
