“Then an organization you can’t even name broke you. Trapped you into working for that organization, where you’re required to assassinate anyone they tell you to.
“You are sent to country after country and you are never told why you are ordered to kill these men and women. There is no time limit and you have no way out. They continue to hold that same threat over you like a noose.”
I’d sat, stunned, as she laid out my professional life on the table.
“I am prepared to offer you a way out, Alexi.”
That’s when Karen Oxford saved my life.
RED had been my ticket out of hell.
I walked to my desk and plopped into my chair. The wheels made bumping sounds as I rolled across the carpet in front of my desk. The cotton of the towel was soft as I continued to dry myself off.
A few framed photos of my brothers, sister, and parents were on my black-and-chrome desk next to a chrome reading lamp, a huge computer screen, and an open Operation Cinderella manila folder.
My bare office showed just how much time I’d had to make it the least bit “homey” since I’d been promoted.
I braced my elbows on the tabletop and rubbed my sweaty temples with my fingers.
Randolph hadn’t gotten out. In fact her last moments had been nothing but hell. No matter what Oxford said, I couldn’t feel that it wasn’t my fault.
I braced the heels of my palms against my forehead.
Going undercover into the world Randolph had been immersed in was my next step.
A step I was more than willing to take to even the score for not only the auctioned women, but for Agent Stacy Randolph who hadn’t deserved her fate.
CHAPTER 5
Nick
March 27
Wednesday evening
Nick studied the woman who knelt in a submissive position facing away from him. Her naked ass was high, her wrists tied behind her back and her face turned sideways against the dungeon’s stone floor.
Tears trickled from Nandra’s eyes, her mascara streaking her cheeks. She was biting down on the ball gag but moaning with pleasure.
Before he took another swing, he rubbed his palm over the warm skin as he examined his handiwork. Her flesh was bright pink everywhere he’d swatted her with the leather paddle.
Hard, like she always wanted. With Nandra, the more she was punished the more intense her climax.
She moaned again and pushed back so that her ass was even higher, which told him how close she was to orgasm. She wanted more and she wanted it now.
Nick swatted her hard on the left ass cheek.
Nandra’s whole body rocked with her climax as she collapsed to the floor. No doubt the sound she was making behind the ball gag would have been a scream of intense pleasure while she squirmed on the dungeon’s stone floor.
He moved to the dungeon’s sink and washed his hands while Nandra whimpered behind the ball gag. When he looked over his shoulder she was staring at him with clear adoration.
She’d been a good sub, good experience for what he was about to do within a couple of days. Thanks to Master Richardson’s tutelage over the past few weeks, Nick was now proficient with most forms of BDSM punishment, including becoming an expert with the whip.
It was time to let Nandra go. She wouldn’t be happy, but he was going undercover.
And Nick would have the delectable Alexi Steele to keep him more than occupied.
CHAPTER 6
Nobody screws with me
March 27
Wednesday evening
Their bodies moved together, sweaty, hot, sultry.
The muscles in his back flexed as he slowly slid his erection in and out of the woman. The blond’s breasts were large, her nipples hard peaks. She moaned every time his chest grazed her breasts, and she gasped as he thrust into her and drew back out.
The smell of sex was strong and his gaze was focused entirely on the woman’s face as she tipped her head back and moaned even louder.
It could have been a real turn-on to watch.
If it wasn’t my boyfriend with another woman.
The pain in my chest and the flames flushing my body had nothing to do with the heat between Gary and the woman with her long legs wrapped around his hips.
“You sonofabitch.”
Gary jerked his head up and the woman let out a scream nearly loud enough to shatter one of the lamps.
“Lexi.” Gary’s face flushed red straight up to his blond crew cut. He scrambled from the bed as he grabbed a sheet and wrapped it around his hips. “Oh, shit.”
“You better believe ‘Oh, shit.’ ” It wasn’t far to the closet where he kept his baseball bat. Everything I touched seemed to burn my hand, from the closet’s doorknob to the grip of the aluminum baseball bat.
“What the hell are you doing?” When he saw what I was holding, Gary backed away so fast he tripped on the edge of the sheet he clutched.
My fingers ached from gripping the bat hard with one hand while slapping the thickest part against my palm.
“Uh, Lexi.” Gary managed to keep on his feet. “Christ, I—I’m sorry.”
“You’re going to be a lot sorrier.” I ground my teeth so hard I probably came close to cracking a molar as I headed for the kitchen, carrying the bat. The ache in my gut grew as his betrayal hit home.
The knife drawer squeaked when I jerked it open. Perfect. This one would do. I clenched the handle of a butcher knife in my free hand. Both weapons felt good and solid as blood pounded in my temples and I faced Gary.
His jaw dropped. “What the—”
A shriek cut off the rest of his sentence. The very tall blond he’d been in bed with stood in the bedroom doorway. Apparently he wanted a lay with longer legs to spread than me.
She was wearing his T-shirt.
When my overshirt fell open enough for her to get a good view of the Glock holstered at my side, I winced at her shriek. Oh, yeah, he’d gotten himself a real screamer.
I hefted the bat against my shoulder and Gary’s eyes widened as I met his gaze. I didn’t blink.
“Lexi—” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he glanced to the bat and knife.
At that moment I could almost feel the satisfaction of hitting a grand slam with Gary’s balls. I gave an evil smile and glanced at his nuts before looking back at his face, which had gone white. He knew exactly what I’d been thinking.
Forget that. I knew a better way to damage his manhood.
I jerked open the front door of his first-floor apartment hard enough to rattle the hinges, then strode to the front door of the triple-decker apartment building. Cool spring air smacked me in the face when I headed for the short flight of stairs leading to the concrete sidewalk. Each step creaked as I jogged down to the street.
I went straight for what Gary loved more than anything—
His shiny black F-150 parked in front of the trip where his apartment was.
A bunch of Gary’s neighbors hung out on the back porches of their trips, listening to a game on the tube and shouting at each other from one balcony to another as the game blasted from their TVs. Smells of popcorn, hot dogs, and beer floated from the balconies.
Not likely anyone could hear what I was about to do over all the noise.
The butcher knife sank between the tread of the rear driver’s-side tire as easily as Gary had been sliding into that blond who was starting to get the neighbors’ attention with her shrieking.
I focused on the truck and tried not to picture what I’d just seen. That—that—
The pain that had taken hold in my chest now made my entire body ache. I’d trusted him. I’d cared for him.
The front driver’s-side tire seemed like a good place to leave the butcher knife. Gary cheated on me hammered my mind, and by the time I picked up the baseball bat I was practically on fire again.
“You.” My Southie accent revved up. “Fucking.” I raised the bat just over my shoulder. “Sonofa—” I reached the driver’s door. “—bitch.”
Glass scattered over the back of my hands as the driver’s side window shattered. My hair swung in my eyes as I gave another good swing and took the bat to the door. Metal gave way with a satisfying crunch, the impact reverberating through my arms.
Coach Pacholewski would be proud. What a way to put to use my four years as a star player on my high school baseball team.
Then Randolph’s death hit me again like another blow. I’d come over for comfort and intimacy with Gary. I’d needed him.
More anger, hurt, and pain went into every swing of the bat. The headlights and fog lamps went next as I put every bit of pain into each swing. The windshield spider-webbed when the bat made contact, but the passenger door window shattered all over his leather seat.
Like a hammer punch to my heart, Gary’s betrayal and Randolph’s death hit me hard enough that my eyes began to ache.
Not now. Not now, not now, not now.
I didn’t do tears. I didn’t do crying.
If I couldn’t cry over Randolph, I certainly wasn’t going to cry because of Gary.
Damnit. Moisture gathered at the corners of my eyes and I had to fight to keep even a single tear from rolling down my cheek.
Screw Gary.
Putting everything into every swing helped me fight back the pain, and I let it all out with that bat.
This one was for Gary.
This one was for Randolph.
This one was for me.
Some of Gary’s neighbors now leaned over the railings of their porches or came out and stood in the street. A few were laughing their asses off and made cracks at Gary while one guy said, “Fuck, that’s gotta hurt.”
In this Boston neighborhood, no one interfered—we Southies stuck together and stayed out of each other’s business.
Before I could take a swing at the passenger door, large hands grabbed my shoulders from behind.
My heart hurt when I whirled around and met Gary’s blue eyes.
He wore a pair of jeans but no shoes. I wanted to pound on his large bare chest. To shout, to scream.
Gary gripped me harder by the shoulders. He’d seen me bring down men twice my size in jujitsu sparring, so he was taking a big risk. Didn’t matter that he was a massive bodybuilder. I’d put him in a world of hurt.
“How could you?” My voice came out hoarse as I looked into his handsome face. A face I had trusted.
“I’m sorry.” He squeezed my shoulders, and he looked like the Gary I had cared about . . . before now. “I was going to tell you, but I didn’t know how.”
I shook out of his hold. My throat felt like it was closing off. “You don’t screw around before breaking off a relationship.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Fuck you, Gary.” I gestured to the door where the blond had disappeared. “Better yet, go back to screwing her.”
He didn’t let me go. “You’ve been closing me out, Lex. More and more all the time. There are parts of you that I could never reach even when we were together.”
For a moment I couldn’t say anything. The job. The job that meant the world to me forced me to keep secrets, even from Gary.
“You could have talked to me.” My voice was hoarse with anger and pain. “You never said a word.”
“Lex—”
I was trembling all over now. “Stacy Randolph is dead.”
The shock on his face was real. Gary thought Randolph worked for the same language interpreting agency as I did so he knew her.
He dropped his hands away from my shoulders. I could see his desire to comfort me, to wrap me in his arms. No friggin’ way. “Oh God, I’m sorry.”
So much more pain wanted to explode from me that I backed away from him, turned, and took the hardest swing yet. This time at his passenger door. I don’t know why the crunch of metal was so satisfying, but it was.
Pain, anger, hurt, betrayal, shock, guilt. Could anyone feel so much balled up within and not be turned inside out?
I raised my chin and whirled to face Gary—
And came face-to-face with a pair of men in blue.
Christ.
The frantic beat of my heart increased as I looked from one stern face to the other.
Not jail. Oh, God.
One of the cops looked at the damage to the truck. “Must have pissed you off good,” he said in a strong Southie accent. I swore I heard amusement in his voice.
The other officer marched me the few steps to the cruiser and forced me up against it, my back to him, my arms and legs stretched out as I braced myself against the car. I could smell the soap he must have used to shower, and the dry-cleaner scent of his pressed uniform.
My anger started to fade, and instead a sense of defeat made my body ache. Right then I wanted to curl up in a ball and hope this was all a dream. A nightmare as bad as the ones I had nearly every night.
“I’m not pressing charges,” Gary started to say when the cop’s words cut across his.
“What the hell—?” the cop was saying as he found the Glock at my hip, before he discovered the knife strapped to my ankle. “Do you have a license to carry concealed weapons?”
Oh, shit. I always locked my handgun in the glove compartment of my Cherokee before I saw Gary, but today I’d been too distracted.
“No,” I muttered, part of my anger draining away into cold, hard reality. Lexi Steele was an interpreter. She wouldn’t have a concealed weapons permit. “I don’t.”
“Then I guess it’s a trip to the station for you,” the cop said.
“I’m not pressing charges,” Gary repeated.
“That’s fine,” the officer said. “But we’re taking her in for possession of illegal weapons on her person.”
I was so in for it when Oxford found out.
The people standing around or peering over their balconies only knew me by my real name of course—I’d grown up with a lot of them. To everyone I knew in “real life” I was just Lexi Steele. Pint-sized tough chick who could speak nine different languages.
The officer finished searching me, and I heard the jangle of cuffs. He jerked my arms behind my back before the cold metal bit into my skin.
The officer started reading my Miranda rights.
Icy realization hit me.
I was really going to jail.
I was going to be put behind bars.
Now I’ve really blown everything, haven’t I?
When they shoved me into the back of their cruiser, I met Gary’s eyes. His were filled with regret, not anger. And that hurt worse than if he’d been furious with me.
I looked out the cruiser’s other window and swallowed so hard I coughed. Everything familiar now seemed alien as the officers drove through Southie toward the District 6 station on Broadway.
Like an egg separated from the yolk, what was real separated from what couldn’t be.
Gary had been a safe place in my not-so-safe life, and now that was gone.
CHAPTER 7
Nick
March 28
Thursday morning
Nick scrubbed his hand through his hair. Just great. He had a partner who apparently didn’t know the meaning of the words “low profile.”
He clenched his jaw as he leaned back in the chair of his home surveillance room. Blue light from the several computer screens was the only illumination in the room, which suited him just fine.
Just looking at one club in particular had him clenching his hands and ready to punch holes through the walls. He hadn’t been one to destroy property, but goddamn, just seeing the Diamond Castle made him want to go to the nightclub and tear the place apart. He wanted it so bad his palms itched.
Now he had a partner who could possibly have fucked things up unless RED had gotten the situation under control and kept what she’d done out of the media.
He felt a surge of frustrated anger. He didn’t need this shit. Not now.
Nick got up from his chair and headed toward his bedroom to change into his sneakers and shorts. He n
eeded to go for a run. He’d be no good to anyone if he lost control.
He was too close to achieving his goal. And yes, he’d mow down anyone who got in his way, but he’d try to make sure that Lexi Steele was safely out of the way. However, not even she would have the power to stop him.
CHAPTER 8
I’ve really done it this time
March 28
Late Thursday morning
I don’t handle cold metal bars well so I was more than a little relieved when a short, stocky female officer strolled up to my cell and said, “You’re in luck, babe,” she said as the lock clanked and she rolled the door open. “You’ve got yourself a ‘Get out of jail free’ card.”
I pushed myself to my feet in time to see two men enter the corridor. A combination of relief and dread went through me in a harsh rush.
It was two of my own agents, Takamoto and Smithe. This was just the beginning of Oxford’s punishment.
God.
The BPD officer winked at me before she led us down a couple of corridors.
“To think,” Smithe said with a grin, “we’d end up bailing our TS out of jail.”
I glared up at him. “Screw you.”
Takamoto laughed and I glared at him, too.
I’d tried calling Georgina last night. But she never answered her cell and I couldn’t think of anyone else to call. Not my family. Not even my brother Zane, who was a RED Special Agent, too. He knew Gary and I didn’t want Zane to end up in jail, too, for killing my now ex-boyfriend.
No, I’d had to face the lion’s den and place my call to Oxford.
The officer escorted us through a main door and into the police station itself. The breath I took felt like I’d just sucked in a lungful of spring air compared to how it had smelled where we just came from.
“Tsk.” Smithe wasn’t going to give up as he signed out the two weapons that had been taken from me. The knife and the Glock—both had saved my life one time or another, or had ended someone else’s. “Beating some guy’s truck in broad daylight—yeah, that’s low profile.”
Cheyenne McCray - [Lexi Steele 01] Page 5
