With Becca a nonstop movie ran in his head. Her naked and sprawled across his bed with her arms over her head and her legs spread wide. Him between her slim thighs. His taste on her tongue and her moans echoing in his ears.
The image snapped off when Wade crossed in front of Jarrett, pushing open the door to the main bar seating area and stepped inside. A steady beat of music thumped in the background as it did whenever the club was closed and Wade picked the playlist.
Jarrett glanced around the velvet-lined booths and nodded with approval at the empty room. Wade clearly had shooed the attendants off the floor and the few male cleaning staff who were still there to set up scurried out of the open space when Jarrett pointed toward the kitchen door.
The place would open in about four hours and everything had to be set up and perfect by then. Every piece of crystal cleaned and sparkling. The room polished and primed for the men who demanded the highest quality when they filed into their claimed bar seats.
Jarrett learned long ago men would pay for better service. How when the customers were happy they spent more, drank more . . . talked more. Which gave him the perfect excuse to cut this unwanted meeting short. Not that he’d ever let Natalie linger.
Even in the dim lighting he could see her perched on a barstool with her impressive legs crossed and business suit tidy, this one trimmed close to her body in boring navy because she always picked monotone drab colors. She had a clenched government-worker-bee look to her, complete with blond hair coiled on her head in some intricate style that gave him a headache.
A practiced chill radiated off of her, but even with the harsh façade he could make out the woman underneath. The photographs in her employment file showed a much more informal Natalie, one that even managed to smile now and then. Not his type, but objectively attractive in a from-the-South, had-to-hide-her-sexuality-to-compete-in-a-male-dominated-career way.
Even now that soft North Carolina drawl would seep into her voice when her defenses dropped. He knew because his very presence on the earth seemed to prick her temper. He doubted this conversation would be any different.
She hated that he knew about the Spectrum shell company and the operatives behind it, as well as about her position at the CIA. Things he wasn’t supposed to know, that almost no one knew. He only obtained access because her bosses, men higher up who lacked her smarts, needed him for information and their usual tactics in lying, planting evidence and destroying lives had failed.
Lucky for him he had stockpiled information that made him relevant to those men in suits at Langley. When he decided to bargain for his freedom he made sure the deal came at a cost to those who wanted to destroy him. It had to be that way because he had almost lost his fucking mind when he lost Becca, and someone had to pay for that.
“Natalie.” He slid onto the stool next to hers while Wade took up his regular position behind the bar, only a few feet away.
“I’ve asked you to call me Ms. Udall.”
Jarrett nodded. “And I’ve declined.”
She glanced at Wade then back to Jarrett. “I need to speak with you privately.”
Wade cleaned a glass. “I think she’s talking about me.”
This was nonnegotiable. Jarrett had learned about trust the hard way at Becca’s hands and before. Wade still enjoyed privileges few had. Their relationship transcended that of employer-employee.
“Wade stays.” He always stayed, except for the plans Jarrett had for Becca upstairs. Plans he intended to implement within the next fifteen minutes.
Natalie swirled the water in her glass, letting the ice cubes clink against the side. “This is business.”
“Wade knows about your job and a whole host of items buried in folders in safes somewhere that you’d likely rather neither of us know. That was the deal I made with your bosses at the CIA. That’s always been the deal, and you know that.”
Her gaze narrowed. “You continue to be confused about how our relationship works and your very limited role in any agency operation.”
“Admittedly we have a communications issue.” Jarrett leaned his elbows against the intricately carved bar and stared at the perfect lines of bottles on the shelves behind. “For reasons that are not clear, you think you own me.”
“I do.”
“I assure you, you don’t.” He faced her then. “Why are you here?”
“Spectrum.”
That was the second time in an hour that particular topic came up. First Becca stumbled up to his door and now Natalie came poking around. “Not my favorite subject.”
“We finally found something we agree on.”
“And if what goes on behind Spectrum’s doors is such a big secret, why do you people keep talking about the place?” Jarrett never wanted to utter the word again.
“As you point out, only very few people know the truth about Spectrum, and almost all of them who remain alive are in this room right now.”
His thoughts bounced to the woman upstairs and how she seemed to bring nothing but disaster into his life. “Get to it.”
“The business closed.”
“I saw the fake bankruptcy filing for Spectrum in the paper. Almost looked like the company really existed.”
“Several members of the team are dead, but I think you know that as well.” Natalie took the file from under her elbow and slid it across the top of the bar to him.
He resisted the urge to grab it. It was unlikely she’d provide any real intel anyway. He’d been tagged as the enemy, someone they had to deal with thanks to their agreement. “I read the newspaper. Saw the obituaries, complete with made-up histories and families. Must be hard to dump carefully crafted identities after you spend so much time and money creating them.”
“And do the real families ever know the truth?” Wade asked.
Jarrett guessed, just as with him, there would be no one to tell when the end came. “Good question. Natalie, care to take that one or is the answer classified as well?”
From the frozen features to the flat mouth, her look telegraphed her hatred. “I’m wondering if you, Jarrett, are the one pulling the strings, arranging for everyone who harmed you to disappear.”
“Interesting theory.”
“It’s as if you decided to eliminate Spectrum and everyone behind it.”
There was a time he considered it, but the CIA could not lay that sin on his door now. “I sense you question my subtlety.”
“But not your thirst for revenge.”
He had officially had enough of this game. He shifted in his seat, inching closer so she wouldn’t miss a word. “You closed up Spectrum, not me. I had nothing to do with that business decision.”
“We disbanded the cover for reasons that are none of your concern.” She trailed a finger around the rim of her glass. “But someone, I’m thinking you, is going a step further and taking out the people who worked under it.”
Jarrett glanced at Wade. Jarrett read the same thoughts bouncing around in his head in his second-in-command’s eyes. Either they were being played or the CIA had not pulled the trigger on Spectrum’s operatives. According to Becca and everything Jarrett had figured out on his own, someone had, which raised a lot of questions. None of which he planned to ask Natalie.
“There’s no need for me to do anything. I was cleared of the trumped-up drug charges and your bosses assured me Spectrum would no longer be a problem, which is clearly the case.” But Jarrett trusted the CIA’s promises as far as he could drop-kick Wade. Danger lurked and Jarrett never dropped his guard.
“I find it hard to believe you wouldn’t seek revenge on the people who destroyed your reputation.” A smile curled at the edges of Natalie’s lips. “After all, a woman, an operative, one of Spectrum’s team, slipped into your life and bed and made herself at home in your world. That has to eat away at a man like you.”
This was a
dangerous game. Natalie sat right next to him, poking at still-gaping wounds and not understanding her peril or how the fury over Becca’s betrayal still raged in his brain until it wiped out every reasonable thought.
He masked all of those ricocheting emotions under a tone of bland disinterest when he spoke again. “I’ll ask again. Why are you really here, Natalie?”
“Becca.”
“What about her?” On cue, the alarm on his phone went off. A simple code of four short buzzes followed by a second round. When Wade jerked and reached for the phone in his pocket, Jarrett knew he’d gotten the message, too.
That meant one thing—Becca was wandering around upstairs, stepping exactly where she shouldn’t be. She’d either breached the doorway to his bedroom or private office. Either option cast doubt on her “someone is trying to kill me” claims.
Wade glanced in the direction of the back hall and raised an eyebrow. Jarrett shook his head. He didn’t want anyone seeing Becca naked but him, though she could be dressed and scaling a wall to the outside by now for all he knew.
Still, she’d come to the club for a reason. Maybe she found what she wanted or planted something new to screw him over. Either way, the damage was done. Rushing up there wouldn’t fix it, regardless of how much he itched to do it. His sole focus switched to getting Natalie out the door so he could get upstairs faster.
When his gaze clashed with hers again, the intensity of her anger nearly swamped him.
“Do you have somewhere more important to be?” Natalie’s chill had morphed into an icy drip in her voice.
“Actually, yes.”
Her annoying smirk of satisfaction wavered. “You’re telling me you don’t care about the information I have on your former lover?”
“The key word is ‘former.’ I stopped caring about Becca a long time ago.” He refused to let that be a lie. Even ignored the way Wade’s eyebrow lifted.
Natalie finished her drink and dropped the glass against the bar with a thud. “I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care.” That much was true. He never cared what anyone at the CIA or with the police, or even Spectrum, thought about him. He’d abdicated a small portion of control in order to stay out of prison, sure. He laid the blame for that on Becca, but he was no one’s bitch. No one’s.
“Then I guess you don’t mind that Becca either is in danger or is the danger.” Natalie said it as a comment, but it was clear from the slow emphasis of each word she didn’t believe the sentiment.
At least they’d finally hit on a topic that did interest him. Not that he let that show. He steeled his body to remain still and forced his mouth into a thin line. “You obviously want to tell me something, so why not just go ahead and say whatever you came here to say.”
“She is the prime suspect.”
The news kicked him in the gut. Not what he expected at all.
Wade frowned. “Suspect in what?”
Natalie ignored Wade like he was beneath her. Just the help. Her focus remained on Jarrett. “Eliminating her team.”
“Why exactly would she do that?” Jarrett asked, unable to conjure up an explanation that made any sense.
“Power gone wild. Thirst for revenge. Lost her mind.” Natalie held both hands up in the air as she ticked through the possibilities with all the enthusiasm of someone reading from a grocery list. “The reason doesn’t really matter. The point is that she’ll be put down like a rabid dog.”
The description set a flame to Jarrett’s brewing fury, but he refused to even flinch. “And why are you telling me?”
“I thought you should know in case you got the wild idea of trying to help her.” Natalie finally glanced at Wade. “If she comes here—”
“Which she wouldn’t.” Jarrett said it like an order, basically commanding Natalie to speak to him again.
It worked. The explosive fury behind those brown eyes burned into him. “You are to contact me immediately if you hear from Becca.”
He’d hand over the keys to the club before he took directions from Natalie or anyone in her office. And no one was touching Becca but him. “Again, Natalie, I don’t work for you.”
“I know you think that.”
“You seem to forget our deal.” Not that he ever could. It proved to be the ultimate case of sleeping with the enemy. “I gave you information you needed—”
“To stay out of prison.”
Jarrett bit back a sharp response, one that pointed out how much he hated it when people interrupted him. But that would give her power. If she knew his weak points, those things that grated and prodded at him, she’d use them against him daily. Hell, he’d do the same thing in her position.
“You were desperate to have it and I acquiesced.” The same information he’d painstakingly collected and portions of which he continued to hold back for his protection and the safety of a select few others. “We both know the drug charges were bogus. The concerns about what I knew from customers, those from outside of the country and those in power positions in D.C., led your office to admit Spectrum had exceeded its authority coming after me.”
“I don’t believe we admitted any such thing.”
Maybe not directly, but it happened at some level or he wouldn’t be free. He had ferreted out that much. “The team wasn’t supposed to plant drugs or have me arrested. Because, as we both know, the CIA isn’t in the domestic drug-crime-fighting business. But I’m thinking someone at Spectrum went rogue. When you realized, you terminated the team and the operation. Then you got into bed, metaphorically of course, with me.”
Natalie spun her seat around to face him with her smirk back in place. “I never would have made the deal with you.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re not in charge at the CIA.” Jarrett slid off the seat and stood next to the bar. “Next time make sure you have an appointment before you come over. I am no longer available for drop-in visits.”
Her feet hit the floor as she reached out for his sleeve, her hand catching only air. “We’re not done.”
He thought about the silent alarm and the woman upstairs and all he wanted to do to her, and kept walking toward the hall. With his final step in the room, he glanced over his shoulder and shot Natalie a look that made most men wither. “Yes, we are.”
FIVE
The leather chair squeaked as Becca leaned forward and stared at the sign-in on the screen. Figuring out Jarrett’s convoluted password would be impossible without an intricate computer program, a tech expert and hours to analyze.
Not that she truly cared, whatever his current crimes, except to the extent she needed him out of jail for now. That was all. She wouldn’t let any other attachment or concern grow. She absolutely refused to worry about him. She’d wasted far too many hours on that useless task already.
Being back in the condo, up on the third floor and locked behind a wall of security, the rush of adrenaline that had been flowing through her and fueling all those fears bubbling in her mind slowed. Jarrett walked her into the building. He didn’t reach for a weapon or call his old contacts from the streets and have her hauled away. He put her in his most private space and bossed her around, but stopped before unleashing his fury with more than words.
An attack could still come. The waiting and quiet could be a game, and she’d mentally prepared for that possibility, but the panic that assailed her the second she stepped in the alley had disappeared. At the realization her heartbeat eased back to a normal rate.
Jarrett had to be in control and liked to deliver each sentence with a harsh bite to his words. She’d deal with that. The whip of need she experienced around him proved to be the bigger problem. Which was why she needed to get to work and get out of there as soon as possible.
Even knowing he wouldn’t be dumb enough to write down a password, she eased the chair back and opened the top desk drawer. The sound almost d
rowned out the soft click of the front door closing in the other room. Almost.
She shot to her feet with one hand clutched on the knot holding the towel together. The other reached for the desk lamp and yanked the cord from the wall. Not much of a weapon, but something in case a trained killer, and not Jarrett, lingered out there.
With her back to the wall, she peeked around the hall corner and spied Jarrett right by the front door. Tall, angry and frowning in her exact direction. He excelled at that sort of thing.
With the towel clutched tight against her chest and the lamp hanging loose in her other hand, she stepped out into the open living room. “It’s you.”
The frown deepened. “Who else would it be?”
“I don’t know. That’s kind of the point of me having this.” She held up her makeshift weapon, letting the plug scrape against the floor.
“I see we have some confusion.”
“About what?” But she knew. He was a man accustomed to having his rules followed and she’d violated quite a few since he walked out the door, including the asinine no-clothing one. She wasn’t clear what he knew or how, but she guessed something tipped him off or he wouldn’t be back so soon.
“I thought I made my expectations clear.” The anger vibrating in his voice didn’t leave much room for mystery about his mood.
She rushed to jump in before the anger festered. “I can explain.”
His hands remained behind his back but his gaze narrowed at her interruption. “You have either developed a hearing issue or the entire purpose of your trip here has been a ruse.”
The man’s paranoia was running in its usually high gear. “How do you figure that?”
“One could see this little visit of yours, along with the claims of being chased and in danger, as a second attempt at a setup.”
The lamp touched against her thigh as she lowered it. “You had me strip. You know I didn’t bring anything in with me.”
Tension continued to pulse off of him. “Is that a denial?”
Mercy Page 4
