Verifiable Intelligence

by Kaitlin Maitland

  Ryan drew his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on top. “But she’s my aunt. Isn’t it a rule that you have to like your family?”

  She thought of Antonio, the closest thing to family she’d ever had. “Nope kid, there’s no such rule. In fact, families are the ones who do the meanest stuff to each other.”

  “Jace is my family.”

  She offered a warm smile. “Yes, he is.”

  “It’s not his fault his job makes him too busy for me.”

  “And none of this is your fault.”

  “Do you and Jace work together a lot?”

  She was having trouble keeping up with his rapid-fire thought process, but the work thing snagged her curiosity. What, exactly, did Jace tell Ryan he did for a living? The kid couldn’t possibly know that his brother was a killer for hire.

  “What do you know about your brother’s job, Ryan?”

  The boy shrugged. “He travels a lot.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Sometimes it’s dangerous.”

  An understatement certainly, but still a vague detail that informed without actually telling. She opted to probe in another direction.

  “What do you think I do for a living?”

  “You get rid of people’s problems.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Antonio.”

  Jace chose that moment to knock on the door. At least that was who Ryan assumed it was since he leapt off the bed headed for the main room of their suite.

  Dayne snagged his arm before he made it to the bedroom door. “No. Stay here.”

  “But it’s Jace.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “He used the special knock.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Jace has a key, Ryan. Besides, what if someone else took a wild guess and used that knock just to see if they could trick you?”

  He had no answer. His mouth opened and closed in a fair imitation of a fish out of water.

  “Go back in my room and wait until I call you, okay?”

  “Okay, Dayne,” he agreed, his expression more solemn than usual.

  He scuttled back onto the bed and prepared to wait, intensity drawing his face into a tiny mask of a much younger Jace.

  She reached into her left boot and retrieved her Sig, checking the clip before sliding it home. She was still trying to digest what Antonio had told Ryan about her career. She got rid of people’s problems? Was that how he saw her? Was that why she was smack dab in the middle of a powder keg about to explode? Did Antonio think she was somehow helping him?

  “Is this part of your job, Dayne?” Ryan asked in a stage whisper.

  She crept toward the suite door, ignoring his question. She didn’t have a ready answer. It was probably yes. After all, staying alive did fall under her job description, since everything she did was related to staying alive.

  “Who is it?” she asked, voice artificially cheerful.

  “Room service.”

  She could’ve used the peephole to see who was standing outside the door. Most people would have. Most people weren’t Dayne. They hadn’t assassinated a mark in that fashion by knocking and then shooting them through the eye when they peeped.

  “Are you sure Jace went for breakfast?” Dayne murmured.

  Ryan’s pale face nodded up and down in her peripheral vision.

  “Get your shoes on,” she ordered.

  To his credit, he didn’t waste time. Whether by some genetic predisposition or by Jace’s intentional design, the kid’s stuff was already neatly packed up and sitting beside Dayne and Jace’s small cases. Ryan slid his feet into his shoes, grabbed his jacket, and swung his knapsack over his shoulders.

  She slipped sideways and began backing away from the door. “Open that glass door, quietly.”

  There was another knock, this one a little louder.

  “Hang on just a minute,” she yelled. “I just got out of the shower.”

  She shoved her feet in her boots, pulled on her duster and grabbed her and Jace’s luggage in one smooth movement. Even if she somehow left her career as an assassin behind, she would never stop being prepared to flee at a moment’s notice.

  It was a part of the way she lived. For her though, it went back farther than that. Moving from foster home to foster home had taught her the futility of unpacking. Somehow a suitcase had become home. She suspected it would always be like that.

  The sliding door emptied out into a small courtyard. Sunlight splashed the Italian style tiled floor through the overhead skylights, and the air was muggy from the nearby pool and sauna. They’d barely reached an exterior emergency exit before Dayne heard their hotel room door forced open.

  “Hurry up, kid,” she urged Ryan.

  “There’s an alarm.”

  “Move it.”

  She all but shoved him aside while she quickly assessed the door alarm. It wasn’t exactly a high tech apparatus. A typical emergency alarm was wired to the exit sign overhead and tripped by the door bar.

  Making a split second decision, she grabbed the wire casing and yanked the connection loose. Cutting it would’ve been too obvious and she didn’t have time to properly compromise the casing. She’d have to hope they thought it was an overlooked maintenance issue. As if she could get that lucky lately.

  “Out, now.”

  “Did you just break that?”

  “I don’t care. Do you?”

  He didn’t answer. He was too busy trying to keep up with her long strides as they circled the hotel building toward the front entrance. When they rounded the last corner before the double glass front doors, she spotted several black cars idling beneath the vestibule.

  Yanking Ryan back into the shadows, she shoved him to the ground behind a mass of decorative greenery arrayed around a pillar. He opened his mouth to ask another question and she silenced him with one fierce look. His mouth clamped shut, teeth clicking together audibly.

  For all that he was only ten years old and clueless about what kind of shit he’d been dragged into, he was a quick learner.

  “What do mean she’s gone?”

  There was a definite note of anger in the shrill female voice that carried over the engine noise in front of the hotel. Confident that Ryan would stay put and keep quiet, Dayne eased around a twisted shrub to get a closer look.

  Four nondescript Ford Crown Victoria’s idled under the vestibule. A knot of people clustered around the vehicles. Tall and buxom with blonde hair twisted into an elegant chignon, Tyra Cantwell was easy to identify. She stood with several other federal agents in trademark dark suits, all with earpieces. Gesticulating wildly at the hotel, she was obviously giving them a piece of her mind.

  Grinding her teeth together in order to smother a string of curses Ryan didn’t need to hear, Dayne reached into the pocket of her duster and pulled out an elastic band. She made quick work of her long, tangled hair while trying to decide exactly what was going on.

  The bitchy Fed had obviously known Jace was out. That still left a couple of options open. Either Ramsey was really, really pissed and had sold her up the river, or Antonio had changed the game. Probably both.

  Slipping slowly back from her vantage point, she took a moment to think. Ryan waited in silence for her to make a decision. She wished there weren’t so many lives riding on her survival skills. This guardian shit was tough. She was beginning to understand why Jace took everything so seriously these days.

  “See that big building over there?” She jerked her head toward the historic Faneuil Hall Marketplace situated less than three blocks from their hotel.

  “It looks like a mall.”

  “Exactly,” she told him with satisfaction. “It’s one of the biggest tourist traps in Boston. Follow me and stay down.”

  Grabbing his sweaty little hand in her own, she began backing away, retracing their steps around the building until she found an ancient stone staircase down to the wharf level. Once they were well below eye level she picked up the pace.<
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  Greenish water lapped incessantly at the boats moored in the harbor. The brackish scent of dead fish, barnacles, and sea salt made Ryan crinkle his nose in distaste. Remnants of the early morning fog still lingered on the water, and the sky was overcast. She shivered and pulled her duster tighter as she walked, the ocean breeze chilling her to the bone.

  Ryan’s voice was oddly muffled by the sea walls. “This is why Jace wanted a room on the first floor, isn’t it?”

  “Rule number one, always have an exit strategy,” she answered frankly.

  “Exit strategy, okay.”

  She should’ve felt guilty about dumping that kind of information on a kid Ryan’s age, but the world wasn’t a friendly place. The sooner he started realizing that the better.

  They emerged north of the hotel on the other side of a large, circular park. She began winding her way west before cutting south to approach the marketplace from a new direction. She had no desire to have any unnecessary run-ins with Tyra and her posse.

  “What’s rule number two?” he asked after they’d trudged several city blocks.

  “Never trust anyone.”

  Massive buildings vaulted toward the sky on either side of them, blocking out what little sun penetrated the cloudy sky. They weren’t alone. There were people everywhere, going to work, going to school, going through life. She watched them, knowing she’d never be part of their world because of rule number two and what it really meant for someone like her.

  “Don’t you trust Jace?”

  It was as if he’d plucked the question from her mind. She sighed and paused at a “don’t walk” sign to adjust her luggage. She stacked her smaller case on top of Jace’s, her fingers brushing lightly over the worn black fabric.

  “Dayne?”

  He was so young. Blue eyes wide in his face, his dark hair tousled. Dressed in jeans and sneakers, wearing a St. Louis Cardinals windbreaker, he could’ve been anyone’s kid. But he wasn’t. He was Jace McKay’s brother, and somewhere along the way he’d become her little brother, too.

  “I trust you,” she told him quietly.

  The light changed and they crossed the street, only a few hundred yards from their goal. The marketplace stood before them, a bastion in Greek revival style. People thronged to its shops and restaurants, lingering in groups or walking in pairs. Dayne seamlessly negotiated her way into the center, blending effortlessly with the ebb and flow of humanity.

  “How will we find Jace?” Ryan asked anxiously.

  She chuckled. “Don’t worry kid, he’ll find us.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Jace shifted to get a better view of the hotel while still keeping his big body concealed behind an entrance pillar, a now forgotten Starbucks bag at his feet. He was close, too close, but he needed to see what Tyra was up to. More importantly, he needed to see who she’d brought with her.

  At first glance they looked like Feds. Standard issue suits, ties, earpieces, all packing weapons. On closer inspection he noted their un-CIA like haircuts, scruffy faces and various choices of sidearm. One guy even had a Dragunov rifle hanging out the bottom of his executive style trench coat.

  A hulking man stepped out of the hotel. Jace recognized him instantly. It was Ross King. Tony Barnes was right behind him. Their presence told him all he needed to know.

  Tyra might be working under the thin veneer of her CIA badge, but this operation was far from a sanctioned mission. These were mercenaries. Handpicked and hired by Tyra Cantwell, armed by Yuri Dolohov and assigned to get rid of him and anyone else who had an independent streak.

  Fading back into the shadows, he waited until Tyra had gone back inside the hotel. King and Barnes followed in her angry wake. Slipping through a side entrance, he entered the dimly lit first floor hallway.

  It was quiet inside. A waft of lemon and pine scented cleaning supplies came from the open door of a nearby storage room. A housekeeping cart blocked one half of the hallway stretching before him. Angling his body, Jace advanced down the carpeted hall. Voices drifted around the corner, and his goal was to get a look at the speakers.

  “Just wait until I tell my uncle what’s been going on behind his back.”

  The faint nasal whine in the voice belonged to Tyra’s partner, Preston Biggs. Curious as to why Tyra would bring her legitimate and untrustworthy partner to an illegitimate operation, Jace pressed his back against the wall and craned his neck around until he had a scant view of the bisecting hallway.

  “What the fuck kind of idiot are you?” Tony Barnes muttered with a low chuckle.

  “The rich, connected kind,” Biggs retorted.

  Ross King shifted into Jace’s line of sight. “What makes you think we won’t just slit your scrawny throat to get rid of your threats?”

  “Settle down, Ross,” Tyra purred. “Let Biggs have his moment.”

  “My moment?” Biggs straightened up. “I know what you’ve been up to! I know about Dolohov and the guns. I know what you and Herrera have going on right under the CIA’s nose.”

  “Well, Biggs.” Tyra tilted her head, propping a slender hand on one hip. “I must admit I didn’t give you enough credit. I never thought you’d manage to figure all of that out on your own.”

  “Well, I did. And if you don’t cut me in, I’m going straight to my uncle.”

  Ross King rolled his eyes. “Is this asshole for real?”

  “Yes, I believe he is,” Tyra said with a sigh. “And God knows we can’t have any more trouble. Herrera has caused enough over that stupid hellion, Castille.”

  Jace knew what was coming. Barnes and King did too. Perhaps the only one who didn’t was Biggs, still confident in the ability of his connections to save his ass.

  Tyra nodded once to Ross King. The big mercenary’s hand closed around Biggs’s neck in a lethal grip before the green CIA agent could blink, much less dodge. He made a croaking noise, his breath bubbling as it was slowly strangled out of him. The young agent’s smooth, manicured hands grasped at the blunt, scarred fingers King had wrapped around his neck in a futile effort to fight back. Jace retreated down the hallway before Biggs’s body hit the floor. He’d seen and heard enough.

  Tyra Cantwell wasn’t taking orders from anyone anymore. The bitch was having her day.

  Jace slipped out of the hotel the same way he’d gotten in. The side door closed with a soft click behind him. Salt sea air seared his lungs as he drew in deep breaths to clear his head. Horns blared from the city streets surrounding him, and a distant siren shrilled.

  He had no worries that Dayne and Ryan were safe. Surprising Dayne was difficult to do. She had an uncanny knack for survival. He had once likened her to a cockroach, not that she’d appreciated the comparison. But she had the same talent for getting out of sticky situations.

  Crossing the street, he headed in a northwesterly direction. Though midday was a few hours away, there was still a good deal of foot traffic around. Most appeared to be tourists meandering wide eyed through Boston’s streets. He buried himself between several different groups and veered back toward the marketplace with them.

  With her penchant for public places, it was very likely Dayne and Ryan would be concealed deep inside one of the two Greek revival buildings. He paused before a directory, scanning it quickly. An ad for the Cheers bar immediately caught his eye.

  Leaving the group of tourists, he detoured down another staircase and into Faneuil Hall.

  It was warm and crowded inside. Kiosks loaded with thimbles, souvenir spoons, and snow globes, and stacked high with brightly colored T-shirts clogged the alleyways. It was simple to distinguish between the tourists and the natives.

  Even in groups, the native Bostonians moved with purpose. They dodged and ducked around the wandering tourists until they spotted what they wanted before swooping in for the grab. It was obvious that their driving style overflowed into their personal lives.

  Moving with his own sense of purpose, he did his share of dodging and ducking around the crying childr
en, arguing spouses, whining teens and gossiping friends littering the space between stores until he finally reached the end of the long, wide hallway-like aisle.

  His heart rate increased as he strode closer to his goal. He trusted in Dayne’s ability to maneuver her way out of a tricky hairpin situation. From the moment he’d met her he had been continuously impressed with her uncanny survival instincts. Yet somewhere in the last week his emotions had progressed past the point of blind faith. The only thing left was a deep desire to wrap his arms around her and listen to her heart beat in time with his.

  Neon scarves glittering with faux gems draped the last kiosk before his target location. He unconsciously sucked in a deep breath. If they weren’t waiting on the other side of the garish display, there were only a thousand more possibilities for him to try.

  He heard them before he saw them. The pitch of Ryan’s voice carried over the persistent din of the surrounding shoppers. Jace ducked around the scarves and immediately saw them standing just outside the bar entrance.

  The thundering beat in his chest eased. He exhaled, slowing his pace as he approached. They were tucked into a corner. The kiosk shielded them from any passersby. Ryan was shifting continuously from one foot to the other, eyes darting anxiously over the walls and ceilings.

  “Where everybody knows your name?” Jace murmured, voice warm with humor.

  “You know I like irony,” Dayne retorted, a beguiling grin lighting her gray eyes.

  Her voice had an edge, though no hint of tension showed in her expression. Jace found he could see past the hard as nails exterior to the vulnerability that lay just beneath. Dayne had been just as worried about him as he had been about her. In a world of lone wolves they had inexplicably become a pair.

  Or, he thought, glancing at Ryan, they’d become a pack.

  Thinking of Ryan, he realized the ten-year-old had yet to say anything. A moment of guilt stabbed unexpectedly at his gut. There had been no other options, no other safe ones anyway. Still, he hated to be the one responsible for ruining the kid’s ideals at such a young age. Their world was ugly. It was brutal and unforgiving. There were times Jace wished he’d known the truth about the world at a much younger age. But seeing his little brother change and harden before his eyes was making him wish there had been an opportunity for a few more carefree years.