by Michele Hauf
He's on the recruitment list.
Shit. If Xavier ended up ultimately having to work with this man…. The risk of going AWOL was looking better all the time.
“Let's do this then,” Blackwell announced. He swung around and stroked Seph's face. “I want you to hand me my five million dollars. It's the very least you can do for old times' sake, yes?”
Lifting her chin, she remained emotionless.
“We'll put the biological weapon together, you and I,” he continued. “Then you'll deliver it to the 8th. It'll be sweet. But if that guy hanging on my wall is the only one who knows where it is, I am forced to put you two out together. Sure, I could keep you in hand, but you have the impetus to keep the man in line. You'll come back to me. If you don't? You'll never be free of me. Promise.”
Xavier could feel Josephine's shudder in his bones. She truly hated Blackwell.
Lincoln snapped his fingers at his lackey. “Get The Fox wired for sound and make sure the tracker is still working on the bitch. Send them out together. I'll want that necklace in hand by dawn. Yes?” He looked at Xavier.
“What's my motivation?” Xavier asked.
Blackwell shrugged. “Life?”
Xavier nodded. “Works for me.”
Chapter 26
Xavier told the driver to drop them in the 1st, half a block from his home. Thanks to the microphone tightly taped around his left bicep, there was no way to keep Blackwell from learning where he lived. The apartments the ECU assigned their agents were not forever homes, so it didn't bother him. He wore a clean suit coat that had been returned to him to wear over his bloodied dress shirt and trousers, but he still got a side look from a passing tourist.
He'd left all communications with Kierce behind before he'd walked near Blackwell's hideout in an attempt to get captured. So right now the ECU was blind to his whereabouts. He'd fix that soon enough.
And Josephine, apparently, wore a tracker on her from as far back as when Blackwell had handed over the cat.
She followed him into the evening shadows of the courtyard before his apartment building. Neither spoke. They both realized words should be carefully measured and analyzed before putting them out.
Once inside his apartment, he immediately put in the earbud he'd hidden in a slit of the suit coat hem. After a snap of static, Kierce confirmed their connection. “Got you. They let you go? With the woman?”
Xavier murmured an agreeing sound.
“All right, got it. I've switched frequencies so Blackwell won't pick up on our connection, but I'm still tracking theirs. Countdown is currently at three hours, forty-two minutes.”
Xavier appreciated the countdown, but wasn't sure exactly what was supposed to go down. The necklace needed to be handed over to Blackwell. But they couldn't do that until Katirci had been located. That had been Gentleman Jack's assignment. No word on the Turk from anyone yet.
He took the notepad and pen from the sofa and scribbled, then handed it to Seph. She mouthed what he'd written: “Fake necklace made. Waiting for Turk's location.”
She nodded, then she tapped her wrist, asking after the time.
He led up three fingers.
“Fuck,” she said out loud. “What's going to happen?”
He shrugged.
“What if the whole city…?”
He shook his head in a vehement no.
She nodded. They couldn't talk with Lincoln listening. And they had to be convincing when they did.
“I'll contact my man,” he said, picking up the cell phone he'd purposely left behind before going after Blackwell. He dialed Kierce. “You got the necklace?”
Kierce affected a very unnecessary British accent. “You should have it soon, mate. We'll arrange a handoff.”
Xavier wasn't sure Blackwell could hear Kierce's part of the conversation, so he'd make it easy for everyone involved. “A handoff? Where?”
“By the river. I'll call you.”
Xavier hung up and looked to Seph. She shrugged. Blackwell had to have heard that. Now all they need do was wait. And not talk. So…if they were going down, he intended to do it on his terms.
He turned and pulled Seph into a kiss that was hard and brutal and steeped with the ache he’d felt when he'd had to endure listening to Lincoln brutalize her. Pulling away reluctantly, he studied her eye. The skin around it was bruised. And her lip—he touched it carefully—was split.
She touched his wrist where the handcuff had rubbed off the skin, and he flinched. She shook her head, tendering a gentle touch to his eyebrow where the cut ached.
“Worth it,” he mouthed. “I got your back.”
And then all the desire and want that had been building since returning to Paris from Berlin exploded within and made him reckless. He touched her breast, bent to bite through the dress right over her nipple.
She fingered the wire beneath his shirt that Blackwell's assistant had placed around his bicep.
Xavier shrugged.
And her dress was shed as quickly as his clothes. He pushed her against the wall. She slapped a hand over the microphone, perhaps muffling it a little. Parting her legs, he slid inside her hot and tight body and groaned at the sweet release that came so quickly, all he could do was tremble against her body and drop his head to her shoulder. With a gritted jaw, he held in a gasp.
Blackwell was getting a surprise performance. He didn't care. Let the man know how much Seph meant to him. He'd had some suspicion, surely. She was his, and he’d let no man think otherwise.
Of course, the villain's thugs could be on their way to his apartment at this moment.
So he had to take what he needed while he could.
He pumped inside her, his bruised ribs and kidneys screaming with pain, but it was all background noise to the pleasure that soared through him and attacked with force as he came again. Seph clutched his shoulders and cried out. He put a palm over her mouth, muffling her pleasure. She bit his finger with wanton abandon.
“They're listening,” she gasped.
“Good.”
“I…” She gasped again and clenched at his bicep. “…want to say things, but they're not for anyone else to hear.”
Pulling out of her and zipping up, he turned and grabbed his phone. Quickly locating the music app while Seph pulled on her dress, he turned it on. Loud.
Seph took the phone and held it against his bicep as she leaned forward and whispered, “I knew you'd come for me.”
“I had to get that bastard in hand.” He nuzzled his nose into her hair. So sweet. So…wrong for him.
“Seriously? So you suffered the torture not to rescue me but to…” She lowered her voice even more. “…trap him?”
He'd said that wrong. He had fought to go in so he could rescue Seph. But he'd never escape the fact she was also a job. “Both.”
“What's the name of this organization you work for?”
“It's…uh…” He needed her trust right now. So he picked up the notepad and wrote it down and handed it to her.
She pushed away from him, pacing the short stretch of his tiny living room. When she finally looked at him, he read the betrayal in her tearful blue eyes. “You never would have told me that unless you had plans for me.”
No, he wouldn't have. And he'd just played the wrong hand when he should have instead followed his heart. But the whole world was listening. And Blackwell still needed to be convinced that Seph meant nothing to him. It was the only way to ultimately protect her from the bastard. “You're not a stupid woman.”
“No, I'm not. You're going to recruit me, aren't you?”
“It's voluntary. Though I do have your list of crimes, which will be used against you. You could make it work for you.”
“Loss of freedom? How's that working for you?”
“Honestly? I have much more freedom now than I had always keeping one eye over my shoulder for the law.” Not entirely a lie.
“I should h
ave figured you'd do this. I don't want to have anything to do with being a chipped monkey who works for scraps like you.” Her voice raised to compete with the techno music noise. “I've always been a loner. Always will be. Do you get bonus points for bringing me in?”
“It doesn't work that way.”
“No, it doesn't. Let me tell you how it works. How it has worked. And this is for everyone who is listening to know what a bastard The Fox really is. That night you broke into my mother's office and stole everything she owned?”
Xavier gaped at her confession. “That was…”
“The thief I told you about? That was you.”
Now was not the time for shocked dismay, when indeed everyone was listening, but she was intent. And he wanted to hear this.
“Why didn't you report the theft?” he asked. “If you witnessed it?”
“How could I end something that I'd wanted to begin? I became infatuated that night. But also infected with the need for revenge. My mom lost everything. And I lost family.”
“Family? You said your mother and her boyfriend handed you over to a foster home. What kind of family is that?”
“It was my family. The only kind I've ever known.” She clutched thick handfuls of her hair, then let go with a frustrated growl. “Like I said, I'm good at being a loner. So I learned. Followed you. Honed my skills. Kept you always in sight. You say you can't remember our first kiss?”
“I do.” Because it returned to him right now.
The hour before he'd moved in on the National Art Museum to grab the Hortensia Diamond, he had stopped for a coffee. It was his MO. Caffeine pumped up his adrenaline and set his senses to super-focus. That evening, a gorgeous blond woman had flirted with him while he'd stood near a high table on the sidewalk outside the café. Before walking away, she'd leaned in for a surprising connection. And he had pulled her closer for a long and lingering kiss under the moonlight. It had further fueled his adrenaline and made the snatch all the sweeter in the moment.
He grabbed Seph's hand and turned it upward to reveal her wrist. “You had only one cat tattoo that night. I do remember. You were…blond? It was the night of my arrest.”
“One hour thirty-two minutes,” Kierce reported in Xavier's ear.
“Exactly.” Josephine shoved her feet into her sandals. “I knew your plans for that evening and had it all timed out. I'd tracked your steps for days, shadowed you like a demon. You got fifty yards away from the museum before the police shackled you with cuffs. I was the one who called the cops.”
And with that, she marched out of his apartment, leaving the door open behind her. “We've located Katirci,” Kierce said, “and will have him at the drop off in seventy minutes. He's gunning for Blackwell.”
Seph had been responsible for his arrest.
Hell. Why all of this now? How was he expected to save the world, or one small portion of the city, when his heart had just been broken in two?
“Let her go,” Kierce warned. “I'll put a man on her. If we still need her for the handoff, we'll get her in position then.”
Xavier crouched to the floor, clutching at his aching ribs. His entire body ached from the beatings he'd taken over the past days, but not so much as his heart.
The woman he'd fallen in love with was the reason he was now literally owned by the ECU.
Let her go? He tightened a fist and beat the wall. The sheetrock cracked. As did his heart.
Chapter 27
Fighting tears, Josephine made her way out of the apartment building, checking the streets for black limos. She still had a tracking sensor on her—where? She had to get into a shower and scrub mercilessly. But Lincoln had said it was waterproof. Would she never get that asshole off her literal back?
She pressed her bare shoulders against the brick wall, rubbing a bit, just in case it did dislodge the unseen sensor. She was unsure where to go next. She'd just given Xavier the biggest fuck-off possible. And she hated herself for that. She loved the man. But he didn't love her. Couldn't, now that he knew the truth about his arrest.
Why had she told him? It wasn't as if she'd been an upstanding citizen who believed in truth, justice, and whatever the hell crap ended that saying.
Oh yeah, she knew why. Because she'd never been a woman to him, only a pawn. A piece to move about to get what he needed, to bring in the bad guy and hand her over to his precious organization.
He'd wanted to recruit her to something called the Elite Crimes Unit? Had he been commanded to do so only after they'd netted Lincoln in their trap, or had this always been his task? He must have used her—with sex—to get closer, to gain her trust. And she had trusted him.
She shook her head. For one moment, might he have been not working and simply loving her?
What a fucking mess she'd made of this all! Why had she turned him in two years ago, when it hadn't mattered for her mother? Xavier's incarceration had not given Judith Devereaux back the fortune she had been holding, nor had it allowed her to come out from hiding from that terrible person she'd held the booty for. It hadn't reunited daughter with mother. It had only taken a stellar thief off the streets and forced him to work for a controlling organization that must have surely stripped him to the soul.
At the time, it had closed a door for Josephine. And had been the catalyst to going off the grid. She had completed a chapter. On to a new life.
A new life that had circled around and smacked her harder than Blackwell ever had.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered. Damn her emotional weaknesses!
A tourist bus stopped four car lengths down the sidewalk. Josephine headed toward it.
* * * *
“You listen, I'll talk,” Kierce told Xavier. “I've tapped into Blackwell's frequency. I'm keeping tabs on her movement. Not for your sake. She's ours.”
Xavier winced. Could she ever be his?
“The necklace is ready to go. Dixon will be at the Place de la Concorde before the Hotel de Crillon in ten minutes. Let Blackwell know the drop off is at the Pont Mirabeau. Katirci has been alerted that the man holding the necklace looks like Lincoln Blackwell. And he knows he's also got the payment stone. He's unaware of the ticking clock, so you need to take control and make sure everyone is in position. Let Katirci grab the necklace and the payment stone and go on his merry way.”
“But what happens in—”
“Forty-five minutes? Your guess is as good as mine. But I'd say whoever is left holding the payment stone is not going to be a happy camper. I think there's something in the stone. A tracker? Detonator? I can only guess.”
“That is an order.” Hunter Dixon's voice came over the earpiece. “We'll rendezvous in ten minutes for the handoff.”
“I'm on my way.” Xavier closed the apartment door behind him and took the tightly wound staircase down instead of the elevator.
They were right. He didn't need to drag Josephine into this one, even if Blackwell had insisted she stand at his side while he put together the cruel weapon. And now that Xavier knew what he did about her, he wasn't sure he ever wanted to see her again.
Striding out into the courtyard, he exhaled and spoke so Blackwell could hear. “The meeting is at the Pont Mirabeau in half an hour. Be there for the handoff.”
* * * *
As the bus waited at a red light, Josephine spied Xavier hurrying down the Rue de Rivoli. Instincts kicking in, she slipped around the front of the bus and followed him, careful to keep two blocks between them. He tapped his ear. Must be listening to Kierce, who always seemed to be in his head. He and Blackwell—along with who else?—had heard Xavier push her against the wall ten minutes earlier. One final good-bye fuck?
No, he had to see her again. The man had been ordered to recruit her. He'd said the recruitment was voluntary. Never going to happen. But if he rambled off her list of offenses, would she have no choice but to volunteer? The amount of time she’d have to spend in prison for her crimes would kill her. But did the
secret organization really have that information, or was it all a bluff? She couldn't know until she heard what they had against her.
But she wasn't going to walk up to him and let him think he had a chance with her. The man had spoiled everything by putting his job before her. Even if that had been his only option, and prison was the fallback, she still hated him.
Logically, anyway.
Emotionally? It took all her strength not to rush up to him and beg him to hold her and kiss her until she forgot the world and how nasty it could be. With him, she'd found a brief spark of happiness. Working alongside him had rocked. And the sex hadn't been anything to complain about either.
How had she turned into her mother? How had she become a woman who’d do almost anything for the bad boy?
But Xavier worked for the good guys now. His bad cred had taken a beating, surely. She didn't want to walk away from the man. And she regretted having turned him in two years earlier.
Xavier turned toward the river. He still had Blackwell and the necklace to deal with. She should stand back and let the handoff happen. Blackwell would be arrested. Maybe. And the ECU would accomplish its mission. She would then be free of Lincoln, but never from the ECU.
Could she allow Xavier to walk out her life so easily?
“No,” she said. “If we have one last chance to escape, we've got to take it.”
Picking up her pace, she intended to get as close to Xavier as possible without giving away her location. She knew Lincoln had a bead on her location. The world was watching; she would linger behind the curtain until it was time to appear on stage.
* * * *
In the limo’s back seat, Hunter Dixon handed Xavier the fake necklace. Knowing Xavier was wired, he spoke plainly. “Blackwell should come alone and meet at the landing below the Pont Mirabeau. Rive Droite.”
“I’m sure he got those instructions.” Xavier studied the fake necklace. It was a good imitation; the diamonds less valuable, but real. Worth about twenty grand, he estimated.
Dixon held up a notecard: “She followed you.”
