Hot on the Hunt

by Melissa Cutler

  Rory’s arm appeared first, then his face and body. He high-stepped through the water in relative silence, dressed in tourist clothes—a Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts and sandals. That was a surprise. She hoped whoever he stole the clothes from was still alive, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

  She had a clear shot and could’ve pulled the trigger already, but the cruel streak in her wanted to make sure he knew who was ending his life.

  She pivoted away from the wall, gun first. “Hello, Rory.”

  He froze in midstride, then turned in her direction. “So it was you. I thought that might be the case, but I had to give it my best try, anyway.” His expression was stoic, like a man resigned to his fate.

  She walked closer, until she stood at the entrance to the pipe. “I was counting on that. Though I would’ve preferred it if you’d been a bit more surprised, perhaps begged me to live.”

  He sneered. “And I’d really like a steak dinner before I die, but we don’t always get what we want, do we?”

  She aimed at his heart, her own heart pounding madly. It was supposed to feel better than this. She’d counted on it being a relief to her broken spirit to have achieved revenge, but it was harder than she’d expected. Conjuring the way she’d felt when their positions had been reversed, when he’d stood before her—her teammate, her lover’s best friend—and looked her in the eye as he pulled the trigger of his Kimber 45.

  Yeah, Rory Alderman deserved this. He knew it; she knew it. Karma knew it.

  At the slight movement of her finger on the trigger, a shot broke the stillness from somewhere to her left. It ricocheted off the lip of the pipe. Alicia ducked back and flattened against the pipe’s interior wall. Rory took off along the beach.

  Another shot rang out, but whoever was shooting at her had terrible aim not to be able to hit her or Rory while she’d been stationary, so she decided it was safe enough to keep moving.

  With a fortifying breath, she shot out of the pipe at a sprint. She wasn’t about to let her reputation and her one chance at revenge slip from her grasp while she cowered in a sewer pipe. She’d unleashed a vicious murderer into the world, and, so help her, she wasn’t going to stop until she’d snuffed him out.

  Chapter 2

  Rory had only a small lead on Alicia, but he was moving fast. Alicia’s boots churned up the sand in hot pursuit, leaping like Rory had over the boulders that marked the beginning of a jetty, then up and over the concrete partition and onto the street. Rory disappeared into a wholesale hammock warehouse.

  Alicia shoved her gun back in her shirt for easy access without causing a panic among civilians and looked over her shoulder, hoping to catch sight of the shooter who’d ruined her one good chance at vengeance. She was still going to catch up with Rory, still going to kill him, but now it wasn’t so pretty and clean.

  Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she flung herself through the door and sprinted after her quarry, ignoring the shouting workers and dodging hammock displays as she followed Rory back to the work area. Rory flailed as he ran, knocking weaving looms and empty wood spools behind him, barring her path.

  A year and a half ago, right after she was shot, she’d gotten winded climbing stairs and had needed to reteach her body how to move like a black market operative needed to. Her need for revenge against Rory and the pain of John’s betrayal kept the fire of her determination lit until she wasn’t merely as physically capable as she had been before, but better. She kept up handily, bursting out of a rear exit into a narrow alley.

  The same pack of children she’d thrown money at stood near the entrance of the alley, nibbling sweet buns. Rory pushed past them, knocking one over. Alicia didn’t have time to console them or explain. She jumped over the fallen child and into the street, running as hard and fast as her legs could go.

  Another shot rang out from somewhere to Alicia’s right. The mystery shooter. She’d go after him next, but first, Rory. She kept her focus trained on the back of Rory’s head, at the buzz cut that made his bald spot look like a bull’s-eye. All she needed was a straightaway free of pedestrians and cars and she could take the shot. But it was rush-hour traffic on Veterans Drive, the road that ran along the harbor, and traffic was crawling. As long as he kept weaving a path among the cars and bicycles, she was helpless to do anything but follow.

  The mystery shooter wasn’t as concerned with collateral damage to bystanders as she was, as evidenced by the crack of another gunshot. This time, the bullet grazed Rory’s thigh. He stumbled right, bullied past a line of wooden barrels and half fell into a seafood processing plant.

  Alicia gave chase. Stunned workers whined their protest and waved fillet knifes and rubber gloves at her. One speared a massive butcher knife in her direction, scolding rather than threatening. She followed the trail of blood drops out the other side of the warehouse. Something flew through the air at her. She ducked back into the warehouse, slamming the door as something knocked against it. She opened it again. A fillet knife was stuck in the other side. With a growl of frustration, she continued following the blood trail out of the alley. Rory must not have been wounded too badly because he was on a bicycle and had taken off across Veterans Drive again.

  He jumped the curb onto the pedestrian and bicycle path that curved around the harbor toward the cruise ship terminals. The path immediately around him was empty. This was her chance. She ground to a halt and drew her gun. Before she could pull the trigger, a bang sounded from behind her. Rory’s bike collapsed. He fell out of sight, off the edge of the path and into the harbor.

  Cursing at the stranger who was really becoming a thorn in her side, she set her hand on the partition, preparing to jump. The whine of a motorcycle’s engine caught her attention. She turned to see a man on a motorcycle, his face obscured by the visor of his helmet, his bike picking up speed as it wove through traffic in approach of the partition between the street and the foot path.

  “Oh, hell, no,” was all she could mutter.

  The mystery shooter. He was young, judging by his fit, muscled body barely concealed by a snug blue T-shirt and worn jeans. He held an HK45 pistol against the right grip of the bike and didn’t seem to be paying Alicia and her Glock any mind.

  Why he was interfering with her operation remained to be seen. Was he helping Rory escape or trying to kill him? Until now, Alicia hadn’t considered the possibility that she wasn’t the only person in the world hell-bent on extracting lethal justice from Rory, but now it seemed a naive way of thinking.

  Then again, it didn’t matter how many people wanted Rory Alderman dead. Alicia was going to be the one who pulled the trigger, and the only sure way to guarantee that was to neutralize the mystery operative before he mucked up her operation any more.

  She vaulted over the partition and dropped onto the pathway, affording the felled bike a nominal glance. Rory was nowhere to be seen. Using the partition as cover, she steadied her Glock. The motorcycle was coming at her on her right. She took aim at the front tire, and that’s when he finally took notice of her. Swerving left, he brought his gun up and squeezed off a round in her direction. She ducked and felt the force of the bullet hitting the partition.

  Ready to give it a second try, she peered over the lip of the partition at the same time she registered that the bike motor’s whine had risen an octave, the sound of it gaining speed. She watched it jump the partition and land on the walkway in front of her. Whoever he was, this man was a professional. A damn good one. Probably, the shots he was taking didn’t hit Rory or Alicia by design, for reasons she had yet to figure out. He could be any one of dozens of black market operatives she knew of, or perhaps someone new to the scene. He afforded her a passing glance over his shoulder, then took off on the pathway.

  She stood, ready to shoot him in the back, but he was too skilled to give her an adequate target, moving the bike in unpredictabl
e dips and swerves. A solid hundred meters in front of them, Rory had reappeared, slogging along in soaked clothes and barefoot toward the nearest dock—the one advertising parasailing adventures in which a tourist is harnessed to a parachute that’s then pulled along in the air behind a speedboat.

  Alicia cursed and took off running, pushing herself beyond the pain of her now burning quads, knowing he was going for that speedboat. It was the only one on the dock that looked remotely functional, much less built to go fast.

  A sunburned, schlubby tourist was presently being strapped into a parachute harness by a local man who was giving a safety talk judging by his gestures. When he saw Rory, he directed his gestures to him, protesting Rory’s presence, most likely. Rory shoved him in the water. The tourist screamed and frantically tried to unstrap himself as Rory leaped onto the boat his harness was tethered to.

  The mystery shooter sped around the turn onto the dock, but not fast enough. With a rev of the engine, Rory took off in the boat, the parasailer floating into the sky behind him, screaming his fool head off. Not that Alicia blamed him. She would’ve been screaming for help, too.

  Alicia ran for the dock. There were other boats nearby. Not as fast, but what choice did she have other than to give chase? Rory angled the boat toward the mouth of the harbor, then left the throttle up and moved to the back of the boat with what looked like a fillet knife in his hand. He worked to untie the rope and before the boat had gotten too far, the tourist went floating back, up into the sky in his parachute a solid ten meters before the chute buckled and he free-fell into the water.

  Alicia turned onto the dock as the motorcyclist swung off the bike and ran to the edge of the dock. He dropped the bag that had been slung over his back and withdrew a Remington XM2010 sniper rifle. The prototype model. The same limited-edition prototype Alicia and the rest of her black ops team had been gifted with three years earlier.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Of its own volition, her body went still. She should be making a break for one of the other boats in the harbor, stealing it and racing after Rory, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t think beyond the one thought repeating in her head. No. It couldn’t be him.

  He lay flat on his belly against the dock, the rifle butt against his shoulder, its stabilizing legs extended to the floor. He ripped off his helmet, revealing tousled, dark blond hair. No.

  Her gaze roved over his body. That strong, broad back, narrow waist, perfect backside. Just as she remembered it. His eye was glued to the scope. He pulled the trigger. The rifle quivered as the boom ripped through the harbor. Rory ducked. The speedboat faltered, its glass windshield shattering.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, dropping his head.

  His voice sent shivers over her skin. How could it be, after so many months, that he still had that effect on her?

  He’d appeared out of nowhere and, whether he meant to or not, he’d helped Rory escape. And yet, she couldn’t get her mouth to close. She couldn’t catch her breath or convince her body to move. She couldn’t even find the will to tell him off for ruining everything. Again.

  Bringing the rifle with him, he pushed into a squat then stood. The jeans hung low on his hips but snug around his quads. She’d forgotten this part—the perfection of him—and she hadn’t even gathered the courage to look at his face yet.

  Rory’s boat was a blip on the horizon now, headed south in a direct path to St. Croix. She afforded the boat only a glance because she couldn’t, for the life of her, stop staring at the man before her, absorbing his nearness and heat, the raw power radiating from his every cell.

  She could feel him watching her and forced her gaze to meet his smoky-blue eyes.

  They were angry, colder than she’d ever seen them. He might have the body of the man she’d once called her lover, but she could see it in his face that he was a changed person. Harder, humorless. She wanted to slap him for what he’d done to her, slap him because she’d almost shot him in the back just now and she would’ve never forgiven herself for it. Most of all, though, she wanted to throw her arms around him and hang on forever. Like a fool in love.

  “John,” she croaked.

  “In the flesh.”

  A tingle swept over her body. In the flesh was right. But it didn’t matter how powerful her unexpected shock of awareness of him was, because Alicia refused to yield her power to a man, especially one who’d betrayed her. It didn’t matter how he made her feel in the innermost, darkest places of her heart; she knew better now. His sudden appearance might’ve stripped her bare, but so what? The only defense against the pervading sense of vulnerability she always felt in his presence was to get mad.

  She stomped over the dock toward him, not that he seemed to notice while he ran a check of the Remington for unspent ammo, so she got right up in his face. “You helped him escape.”

  He huffed and shook his head as though she’d told a joke that was in poor taste. “Is that it, huh? You think that’s what this Remington’s for—to help him escape?” He turned away and shoved the rifle in his bag, then took his HK45 out of the back of his pants.

  The ache of longing in hearing that growl of a voice that had haunted her dreams for twenty long months was so powerful that she hardly knew what to think anymore. She forced her anger back up to the surface. “Of course you helped him escape. You’re the Robin to his Batman. Always the sidekick, never the alpha. You’re not capable of being the alpha dog. Never were.”

  As far as insults went, she knew that one had to hurt, especially to an elite soldier like John. It was an old nerve of his, one she’d learned when they were lovers. She felt like a sore loser exploiting the intimate details of their time together—God knew she had as many secret flaws and faults as he did—but she was desperate to regain the power she’d lost in his presence.

  And maybe, if she were being honest with herself, she was a bit desperate to see if she could spark a fire in his eyes again. Anything but the ice-cold steel that they were now.

  Rather than show fire, though, his eyes got colder. He ran his tongue over his lower lip, then gave her body a dispassionate once-over. Jaw tight and eyes frosty, he swaggered the few steps to her and leaned his face in. She held her breath, held perfectly still, as his lips brushed her temple, then grazed her hair. “You won’t believe what I’m capable of, Phoenix.”

  She wanted to touch him so badly the need ached inside her like a hollow, brittle thing. She balled her hands into fists. Show me, she almost said. “I’m not Phoenix anymore. At least not to you.”

  He backed his face up. Rubbing his jaw, he nodded. “I’m going to get to him first, you know.”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “I can’t let you stop me,” he countered.

  With any other person, if she wanted to stop him, she’d shoot him in the leg or wrestle him to the ground, then bind his hands and legs. With John, she could get away with neither. He had his gun in hand already and, besides, he was a faster shot than she. To top that off, he knew all her close-combat moves, which eliminated the element of surprise—her only advantage when trying to physically dominate a man nearly twice her size.

  Back to basics. The police were going to descend on the harbor at any moment, the U.S. military, too, as they searched for Rory. She swiveled, gun extended, and shot out the tires of the motorcycle. At least now he couldn’t speed past her to steal the next fastest boat in the harbor.

  He raised his brows, bemused but unimpressed. Then he lifted his gun and aimed past her, to the street beyond the boardwalk. With a casual squeeze of the trigger that belied the complicated nature of the shot, he took out the front windshield of her rental car at least a hundred meters away. Guess he’d seen her drive up earlier. That meant he’d seen her interaction with those kids, too. The realization brought a sudden flush of heat to her cheeks. Not cool.

  He flicked a lock o
f her hair off her shoulder. “Are you going to shoot me next? Because I’m not really keen on reciprocating that one.”

  She flipped the rest of her hair behind her and gave him her best scowl. “I’ve been shot enough to last a lifetime, thank you very much.”

  The allusion to her injury at Rory’s hand hung in the air between them. John’s jaw went stiff and the ice in his eyes seemed to spread to the rest of his body. The peal of police sirens cut through the tension.

  John stared out over the water. Alicia followed his gaze. Rory had shot straight out of the bay and was heading south toward St. Croix. John hitched his canvas bag higher on his shoulder and walked past her. “Those sirens are my cue to beat it. See ya around, Phoenix.”

  “He’s mine to kill, John.”

  He didn’t even bother turning around to answer. “Maybe so, but I have other plans for him.” He gave her a little salute before breaking into a run to the right, moving southwest along the boardwalk.

  Alicia shook some clarity into herself, shoved away the overwhelming flood of emotions John had evoked and concealed her gun. Then she took off left in search of something—anything—that would get her to St. Croix faster than either of the two men who’d wrecked her life for the second time in as many years.

  * * *

  Well. That was something else. This day certainly wasn’t turning out like John had thought it would when he’d woken up that morning. True, he’d been looking to shake himself out of complacency, and being in Alicia’s orbit certainly rocked him off his axis.

  He roared through the Caribbean on the boat he’d docked not too far away from the one Rory had stolen, the speedboat that was now visible through his binoculars, as he fought to recover from the confrontation with Alicia.

  He hadn’t been prepared for the toxic cocktail of relief that she looked to be thriving, at least physically, after her injury mixed with a fresh shock of fury at how she’d dismissed him as a corrupt agent without ever hearing him out about what had happened that day. Beyond the fury from his memories, she’d known exactly how to hurt him.