Verifiable Intelligence

by Kaitlin Maitland

  “Hello, Ramsey.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve come looking for a good time?”

  She eyed the busty blondes rubbing themselves like cats in heat against Ramsey’s hips. “Not this kind.”

  “Something else then?”

  “I can hardly imagine what you would have in mind.”

  “For you? I can get creative.”

  “Do you have a minute?”

  His smile turned distinctly wolfish. “Baby, I don’t think a minute is long enough.”

  Stepping abruptly away from his blonde ornaments, Ramsey pressed himself close to Dayne. She’d forgotten how quick he could be. A glimpse over his shoulder showed the girls shooting daggers at his back before spinning around to find another party to join.

  “I think you disappointed your dates.”

  Ramsey shrugged. “They’re disposable.”

  “What a romantic.”

  “Darling, there are always plenty of them.” Ramsey leaned closer to her ear. “There’s only one of you.”

  “Gee, and all this time I’ve been under the impression that men considered two better than one.”

  Ramsey flung back his head and laughed. Grasping her arms, he pulled them up behind his neck and wrapped his firmly around her midsection. Walking her backwards, he stopped only when she was pressed against the wall.

  The conflict between her mind and her body at his touch was staggering. Her body remembered him, his touch, the pleasure he could bring, but her mind remained aloof. It recalled other things. Things like Jace. And though Dayne loathed admitting it, her heart was awfully close to siding with her mind.

  “It’s been ages since you’ve come to me, Dayne. What brought you back?”

  Her heart was pounding. She hadn’t considered what kind of complications she might stir up by coming to the club. Dayne had avoided Ramsey like the plague since the fallout between her and Jace.

  She’d never truly bought into Jace’s suspicions about Ramsey’s double dealing, but it was hard to completely ignore such a strong reaction coming from someone like Jace McKay. Dayne might not see eye to eye with him on much, but she’d long ago learned to respect his instincts. He never made a decision without what he called verifiable intelligence, the kind of evidence you couldn’t ignore.

  Ramsey, on the other hand, had never professed to be anything other than the criminal he was. That very thing had attracted Dayne in the first place. There was something utterly masculine about Ramsey’s bad boy persona that aroused her feminine side on a primal level she found difficult to resist. Which was why she’d been avoiding him for almost a year, until now, when she needed information she knew he had.

  Trying to temper her body’s instant reaction to Ramsey’s nearness, she focused on the need for information. Dealing with Ramsey was tricky. Dealing with him when she didn’t want to disclose her re-association with Jace McKay was even trickier.

  “I need your help working out a few things that have been puzzling me,” she told him with forced nonchalance.

  “A puzzle?”

  “Romanian AK-74’s, a lot of them, in the hands of some people with a list of victims to wipe off the planet.”

  “Ah.” Ramsey’s handsome face eased into a smile. “You’re talking about Yuri’s latest shipment. If you’re interested, I might be able to arrange a few cases for you.”

  “Cases? How many cases are we talking here?”

  Ramsey shifted, pulling Dayne away from the wall and ducking through another doorway that closed behind them. Roughly 16x16, this room was empty but for a few decorative plants in the corners and an enormous piece of furniture she might’ve loosely labeled a couch. It appeared to be a king-sized marshmallow. The loud techno music from the club was nothing more than a persistent background hum.

  “Privacy,” Ramsey announced with a devilish smile.

  She pushed away, putting some much needed space between them. “If Yuri’s importing cases of Romanian AK-74’s, who’s buying them, Ramsey?”

  He casually settled his big body on the marshmallow couch. Crossing his long legs at the ankle, he propped his weight on his elbow and tilted his head. Though he was the picture of composure on the exterior, she knew he was quickly sifting through what he knew and was deciding just how much he could disclose.

  “The buyer is an American agent gone rogue. The order was for not only AK-74’s but Dragunov SVD’s.” Ramsey paused, a feral smile tugging at his lips. “It was a lucrative deal.”

  Mind spinning, Dayne tried to force her thoughts into order. SVD stood for Snayperskaya Vintovka Dragunova. The gun was a beautiful bit of Russian workmanship that could shoot with deadly accuracy at up to 900 meters but could still fire off 30 rounds per minute in a pinch. As a sniping weapon it was nothing compared to some of the modern high-powered sniper rifles available. But the versatility was perfect for mercenaries who tended to use far more force than finesse during assassinations. A case or two of Dragunovs would be a high-end black market item since they were no longer openly exported to the U.S.

  “Dragunovs are a pretty piece of work,” Dayne said, keeping the tension from her voice. “Weren’t you tempted to take a couple for yourself?”

  Ramsey stiffened. “I’m not suicidal. Stealing from Yuri was Kiryll’s game, not mine.”

  “Wait, Kiryll was stealing weapons from his brother?”

  “Even now Yuri suspects this was why Kiryll was murdered.”

  Dayne pivoted, keeping her face averted until she was certain her expression was one of polite interest. “I knew there was a contract on Kiryll, but I didn’t realize that was the motive.”

  He nodded sagely. “We suspect one of his customers backed the contract.”

  She wasn’t buying it. Kiryll Dolohov simply didn’t fit the profile. Ramsey was spinning tales, expecting her to buy into them regardless of how outrageous they were. Why? Did he really think she was that naïve?

  The big Russian shifted, rising from the couch and approaching. His smile was manufactured, designed to put her at ease.

  Truth hit her like a low blow gut kick. Of course he expected her to buy his brand of bullshit. She always had. Even when Jace had vehemently told her Ramsey was a liar and a cheat.

  “What’s Yuri’s contact doing with the weapons?”

  Ramsey pressed the length of his muscular body against her back. He drew her thick ponytail away from her neck and pressed a soft kiss to her collarbone. A jolt of awareness zipped through her body. It wasn’t arousal.

  “I need to know, Ramsey.”

  “They don’t concern you,” Ramsey purred. “Although if you want a Dragunov I’ll speak to Yuri and get one for you. Consider it a gift.”

  “Doesn’t concern me?” she snapped, pulling away. “So far I’ve been chased out of my house and halfway across the country by whomever bought those weapons, Ramsey.”

  He froze, an unholy light filling his dark eyes. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me. Someone’s trying to wipe me off the planet. I’d damn well like to know who it is.”

  “That’s impossible!” he said.

  Dayne shifted her stance, watching with interest. The Ramsey she knew was gone, replaced by the ruthless Russian mercenary that had contacts deep in Dolohov’s organization. He turned, putting his back to her for several moments before snarling a string of ugly curses in low, vehement Russian.

  “You weren’t to be included, Dayne.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The list! Your name wasn’t with the others.” Ramsey stopped short, eyes narrowing as he leveled his gaze in her direction. “You said they chased you?”

  “With Yuri’s AK-74’s, yes.”

  “Yet here you stand, all in one piece.”

  She started to respond, to argue, but recalled how easy it’d been to escape her house. Her pursuers had given up almost instantly. Then at the amusement park, the feeling of being herded everywhere she went. Hadn’t she told Jace she didn’t
feel as if she were supposed to be dead?

  “Then why?” she whispered.

  “That is a question I do not have an answer to,” he said, approaching slowly. “But you will be safe here until we find out.”

  “Stay here? With you?”

  “There is no place safer in all of Boston.”

  She barely managed to contain the hysterical laughter that threatened to burst from her gut. Safe with Ramsey? No. Even after the wild adventure of the past three days, or maybe because of it, Dayne could think of nothing safer than being with Jace McKay.

  “I can’t stay with you, Ramsey.”

  He wrapped big hands around her upper arms. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you will stay. I have missed you.”

  She shrugged away from his embrace. “Sorry, I’ve got other plans.”

  “Other plans?” His tone dropped dangerously. “Plans involving who?”

  “As if you didn’t already know.”

  “Jace McKay will be a dead man in just a short while. It would be best for you to distance yourself from him. Go if you must, you can even take the little boy, but stay away from McKay.”

  “The little boy?” She whipped around to face him. “What do you know about Jace’s younger brother?”

  Ramsey's lip curled with distaste. “We don’t involve children. You’d best look closer to home for the answer to that question.”

  Something in the way he phrased his answer made her blood run cold. Since the beginning of this entire fiasco she’d gotten the feeling that someone was always one step ahead of her. Someone who knew her and the way she worked. Everything Ramsey had confided only confirmed that feeling, but the one piece of the puzzle that made the most sense was almost too horrifying to contemplate.

  Shoving her gut instinct to the back of her mind, Dayne focused on the moment. “We who? You and Yuri? Are you the ones exterminating assassins all over the globe?”

  “There’s only one assassin on my assassination list,” he growled. “You of all people should know that.”

  “Jace is not that easy to kill, Ramsey Vitale.”

  “Perhaps not in the past,” Ramsey said silkily. “Sometimes things change.”

  “Some things never change,” she spat angrily. “If you don’t get that through your thick Russian head you’re going to find out firsthand the hard way.”

  “Is that so?”

  Dayne drew herself up and shot him an icy stare. “I’m through with you, Ramsey Vitale. If you ever see me again, you’ll be looking down the business end of my gun.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jace’s feet paced the hotel suite while his brain forcibly contained his temper. Ryan had been asleep in their shared room for hours, but Jace couldn’t bring himself to lie down. Cool logic told him Dayne was a street-smart assassin who’d managed to keep herself alive despite tremendous odds in a world that didn’t easily forgive mistakes. She didn’t need him to watch her back. She wasn’t shy about professing her independence. So why was he tied in knots waiting for her to return?

  Growling, he clenched his fists until his knuckles cracked. There was nothing wrong with his logic. It was this other feeling that kept sneaking up on him. Something in his gut that kept turning cartwheels every time he imagined Dayne finding herself at the wrong end of somebody’s sniper scope. He’d had that experience once already, and it hadn’t been pleasant.

  His lips eased into a smile despite the misgivings twisting his insides. Playing knight in shining armor to a very disgruntled Dayne ranked near number one on his list of most enjoyable life experiences. He hadn’t expected to see her sweating bullets in that hallway, her mark having gotten the undeniable upper hand. But he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t gotten a kick out of being able to help the stubborn, independent woman out of a tight spot.

  Of course, reflecting on the situation, he still had no doubt she would’ve found a way to wriggle herself back in control. That was just the way she worked. And it was probably one of the things that drove him crazy in more ways than one, which brought him back to the alien sentiments turning cartwheels in his chest.

  It defied explanation. It made very little sense. But he was a grown man and knew exactly what label he could slap on those niggling emotions that kept eating away at his insides.

  Attraction?

  No. A petty attraction would never have him pacing circles in a hotel room with his palms sweating like a teenager on prom night. This was love. Somewhere on this twisted path of dodging bullets and following bread crumbs he’d involved his heart.

  Truthfully it had happened long before this, on a beach in South Texas.

  He stopped pacing.

  A cardkey slipped into the lock on the outside of the door. The handle turned, hinges squeaking as the heavy door was pushed open. Jace fought the urge to yank it the rest of the way open, grab Dayne, and shake some answers out of her. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and stood, feet braced apart, waiting with all the patience he could muster.

  He opened his mouth to demand an explanation when he caught sight of her face peeking around the edge of the door. The air rushed out of his lungs, and his anger drained abruptly away. He’d seen her upset, angry, amused, and obnoxious and any number of emotions and expressions. None of them matched the look on her face at that moment.

  Dayne’s face was pale beneath her tanned complexion. Her eyes were red rimmed as if she’d been crying. She’d let her hair down. The loose tendrils lay in a tangled mass down her back, a few renegade strands snaking over her shoulders. The look in her flat gray eyes was bleak.

  “Dayne,” Jace said softly.

  The response in his gut to her obvious distress confirmed everything he’d been pondering that night. Every instinct demanded he find a way to ease her heartache. His anger evaporated. The only thing that mattered was her. She was safe, but she was hurting. Jace wanted to make it better.

  “I’m sorry I’m late. Things took a little longer than I expected.”

  Closing the door, Dayne slid the deadbolt. He watched her carefully arrange her things on the desktop and remove her footwear before stowing her Sig inside her left boot. She seemed to be avoiding eye contact.

  She turned toward the bathroom. “I think I’ll take a shower.”

  “Dayne, wait.” He reached out and gently snagged her arm.

  “Not now, Jace. Please, I just need some time to think.”

  “Don’t shut me out. You don’t have to do this alone.”

  Her caustic laugh sent chills down his spine.

  “You know, I’ve never been very trusting.”

  “Understandable.”

  “My childhood sort of sucked.” She pulled her arm from his grasp and began to pace the room on the same path he had forged only minutes before. “I don’t remember my real folks.”

  Jace let her pace, let her sort things out in her head. He remained standing; waiting to see what she’d do or say next. A heavy sensation settled in the pit of his stomach. He’d wondered what she’d been like as a kid, and now he was about to find out.

  “Antonio Herrera and I were in a foster home together. Did you know that?”

  Dayne looked up briefly, but he didn’t acknowledge the statement. She wasn’t looking for acknowledgement. Not that the information she’d just dropped like a bomb didn’t surprise him a bit.

  “We moved four times together. That doesn’t happen very often. Moving like that, in and out of shitty homes, it bonds you a little. So even though I never trusted people very much, I’ve always had a soft spot for Tonio. He was like a brother. And some of the stuff we went through together…”

  She let the statement hang, and Jace didn’t even try to fill in the blanks. He knew enough about foster homes to figure that whatever Herrera and Dayne had been through together was horrific.

  She wrapped her arms around her midsection as if trying to hold herself together. He was shocked to note that she was trembling. Her breath came fast, lungs pumping air i
n and out like a runner after a race.

  Moving slowly as if approaching a wounded animal, Jace reached out to Dayne. When she didn’t pull away he slid his arms around her slight frame and drew her close. She was stiff for the span of two breaths before she melted against him. Her arms slipped around his body, and she buried her face against his chest.

  “What happened?” he prodded.

  “Antonio did this. He did all of it.”

  “Why were you at the library that day, Dayne?”

  “I was working on a local contract, going through some real estate files, public record stuff. Hard copy stuff I can’t get to from my computer. That branch has a section full of county tax records.”

  “Whose contract?”

  “It was a favor to Antonio.” She sighed, voice hitching over the words.

  Jace closed his eyes. Blood pounded in his head, roaring in his ears. Antonio Herrera had been responsible for dragging Ryan into this whole mess. Just adding him to the mix made all of the pieces click into place. In his arms, Dayne choked back a sob.

  “I’m so sorry, Jace.”

  “Darlin’ don’t be sorry for things you didn’t do.”

  “I should’ve known better. I do know better!”

  “Better than what? You didn’t make those choices for him.”

  “No, but I know better than to trust anyone as much as I did him! Blind faith, Jace! I know better than that. You can’t trust anyone in this world. Wait long enough and they’ll all fuck you over.”

  “Not everyone is like that.”

  She pushed away, looking up at him through her tangled hair. “Oh, like you, right?”

  He realized right then how ridiculous it was going to sound but said it anyway because it was the truth. “Yes, just like me.”

  “You’re nothing more than a hired gun, Jace. Just like me. Just like Tony Barnes or Ross King. We’re all a bunch of scumbags willing to sell out whoever it takes to get the payday.”

  “It isn’t like that. I’m not like that. You’re not like that.”

  “The hell I’m not!” she snapped. “I should’ve stayed with Ramsey. Let him send some of Yuri’s boys over here to finish you off before I head back to St. Louis and do what I should’ve done when all of this started.”