by Nina Bruhns
He looked over at Sampson, who was being strapped into the mummy basket by the frogmen. “How’s the injured man?”
“He’ll be fine,” Montgomery said. “Thanks to your . . . friend. Special Agent Haywood, thank you,” he added from behind her with such sincerity that finally she came to her senses.
She muscled out of Alex’s arms and turned to the Coastie commander with a blush. “Trust me, my pleasure, sir. I owed you for the sneaks anyway.” She stuck out a foot and wiggled the ugly yellow shoe, crossing her arms in front of her as she did so.
Montgomery grinned. “Next time, I may even spring for a Coast Guard cap.” He touched the brim of his own in a semi-salute and headed for the wheelhouse, stopping en route to supervise the helo’s takeoff with Ensign Sampson and two of the frogmen. The other two frogs were just climbing back on board after having placed several red buoys out to mark the spot where the yacht had sunk.
The commander called orders to the crew, fired up the RB-M, and pointed the prow toward Portsmouth harbor and home.
Rebel turned back to Alex. He mirrored her gaze with such naked desire in his eyes that her heart fluttered madly. But funny dance or not, that “friends” remark had reminded her all too vividly of the rockiness of their relationship. Besides, the Coasties were openly staring.
“Alex, why are you here?” she asked, pressing her banded arms into her abdomen to keep her chaotic emotions from spilling out like a broken gumball machine.
“To rescue you,” he said, stepping into her again. His breath was warm compared to the sudden chilly wind that whipped over them as the vessel scudded along.
“Very funny.” He was kidding. Well, she assumed he was kidding. Rebel didn’t need rescuing and he knew it. What she needed was—
He put his arms around her once more and pulled her close.
She sighed and relented, returning his embrace. Heaven only knew what she really needed. But this . . . this was far too tempting. The arms of the man she loved around her, the promise of more in his eyes . . .
But there were too many unresolved issues hanging over them. Too much history. Too many burnt bridges. “Why are you really here?”
“Same reason you are,” he murmured into her hair. “To check out the yacht that just blew up. STORM sent me.”
Surprise flitted through her. “Is this about the suspicious e-mail intercepted by the NSA?” That was the reason she’d been sent, too.
He nodded. “The Department of Homeland Security has extended our contract to work on the al Sayika traitor case.”
“They think Allah’s Paradise is somehow tied in with that?”
He nodded again. “I’m supposed to liaise with the Coast Guard and the FBI on the investigation.” His lips grazed her temple, setting off sunbursts of heat in her body and melting her willpower a little bit more. “It’s off to an explosive start, I must say,” he murmured
She wasn’t exactly sure if he meant the yacht . . . or their kiss. Both, she supposed. Which for some reason alarmed her.
“Looks like we’ll be working together for a few days,” he casually added.
That alarmed her even more. In the half-dozen years she’d known Alex in a professional capacity—she’d been the FBI liaison to Zero Unit when they met—they’d only talked about investigations and operations. They’d never actually worked together on anything.
Not a good idea.
In fact, now that she was thinking straight again, none of this was a good idea.
He tilted her chin up with an index finger. His golden lashes dipped to a sexy half-mast. “So, angel . . .” he murmured huskily. Her stomach zinged in dreadful anticipation of what he might say next. Which turned out to be the worst possible thing she could imagine, under the circumstances.
He leaned down and his deep voice rumbled in her ear. “So, tonight. Mind if I stay at your place?”
FOUR
“TAKE care. Love you,” Gina said with a smile for her best friend, Rainie, though they were miles apart, and flipped her cell phone closed. Rainie had relocated upstate to work as a nurse for STORM Corps at Haven Oaks Sanatorium, but they talked every day by phone. Sometimes more than once.
Her friend worried about her, Gina knew, and wished she could be here in New York to help her reacclimatize to “normal life.” Yeah, Rainie was no one’s fool. She suspected there was something Gina was not telling her. She knew about Gregg, of course—everyone knew about Gregg after Gina’s paranoid delusional outbursts at Haven Oaks, seeing him lurking behind every tree and even ducking behind doorways in the heavily guarded and top secret recovery wing for wounded operators. Gina’s friend was worried she intended to do something foolish.
Like kill the bastard.
Smart lady.
Rainie kept asking her why she thought Gregg was after her. Why would he possibly want to kill her? Gina didn’t know why. All she knew was he was after her. Every cell in her body had felt his dogged pursuit from the day of her rescue until this very minute. She was in mortal danger. And she wouldn’t—couldn’t—rest until he was no longer a threat. Which meant dead.
But unfortunately, Gina couldn’t kill him unless she could find him.
It had been a whole week since she’d been released from Haven Oaks and moved back to her Manhattan brownstone, and she hadn’t caught sight of him yet. Though, yesterday she’d had a close call. Riding the subway home, she’d felt his menacing presence so thickly she’d pulled her knife and nearly stabbed a perfectly innocent man who’d only had the misfortune of standing behind her on the train. Gregg had vanished like the ill wind he was.
But she hadn’t imagined him. She hadn’t. Not this time. He’d been there. She’d smelled him in the air—that powerful, arousing distillate of sage and gun grease and hard, relentless male. She’d felt him, too. It had been impossible to miss the fleeting press of him, stiff against her backside. A challenge . . . A warning . . . A promise.
She pocketed her phone. Glanced around. Someone different sat in the STORM surveillance SUV on the street this morning, she noted, not Alex Zane as usual. The new guy was pretending to talk on his own cell phone, gesticulating wildly in a perfect pantomime of a frustrated New Yorker. The tag team was nowhere in sight, but that was to be expected. She rarely saw them outside of a crowd, only felt their presence.
This morning, she was out on a contrived errand to pick up fresh flowers for her apartment. Maybe today would be the day she lured van Halen from the shadows. So she could put an end to this terrifying game of cat and mouse, one way or another.
As she strolled the two blocks from her home to the neighborhood florist, the morning sun sparkled gaily off the newly washed windows of a bookstore up ahead. Puffy clouds floated across the sky. The delectable fragrance of coffee and pastry wafted out from the open windows of a café as she walked past. There, at an outside table, a man and woman held hands over the checkered tablecloth, giving each other smiles in a sweet vignette of normalcy.
Everything was just as it should be. Quiet. Ordinary. Unthreatening.
Still, a charge of adrenaline coursed through Gina’s limbs.
He was close by.
She felt in her pocket for her knife. Its smooth, solid handle answered her fingertips reassuringly. Could this be it? Taking a steadying breath, she opened the door to the flower shop. As always, a string of bells tinkled welcomingly overhead. She went in. Five minutes should be plenty of time for van Halen to set up whatever ambush he had in mind. But she’d be ready for him.
When she came out ten minutes later, in her right hand she carried a small bunch of yellow rosebuds mixed with blue forget-me-nots—symbolic, if not particularly subtle—and her black KA-BAR knife held rigidly behind it.
Suddenly, there was a commotion at the café across the street. The woman at the outside table screamed and jumped up. The man shouted, rushing to shield her. Another man lay bleeding on the sidewalk in a pool of crimson. Gina gasped when she recognized him as one of the STORM agents.
Sweet Jesus. Why did Gregg kill the man? It was her he wanted! She’d made it easy enough for him to get to her.
A noise cracked behind her. She whirled. Her pulse exploded. A gun was pointed right at her forehead.
But she was prepared. She didn’t flee. She raised her knife, ready to lunge at her attacker, just as she’d practiced over and over. But for one heart-pounding nanosecond, she hesitated.
Omigod. She couldn’t do it.
Suddenly, the knife was whisked from her hand. Before she could even scream, it plunged deep and true, straight into the false heart of her betrayer. Thank God for the other STORM agent!
Nevertheless, the sickening slurk of blade piercing flesh, the whoosh of the air and strangled gasp bursting from his lungs, and the instant slick of blood that sprayed her whole front made her want to vomit. But the gag froze in her throat as her attacker sank to his knees, a look of shocked horror sweeping across his dark face. A look that no doubt mirrored her own.
The man wasn’t Gregg.
She spun in panic.
Rough hands reached out and grasped at her. Oh, God! But her knife was still in the other guy. It had never occurred to her to retrieve it. She jumped away from the second attacker. Directly backward into the grip of a third man. She struggled fiercely, but he seized her arms from behind and yanked at them, pulling her savagely into his grasp. There was no getting loose. Where was the STORM agent now? In a flash, the second man pulled a long, curved dagger from under his Windbreaker and raised it with a sneer.
She screamed.
But just as he was about to thrust the dagger into her, he stopped in mid-motion, eyes widening, his arm poised in the air like a cartoon character in freeze-frame. He, too, crumpled to the sidewalk, someone else’s knife lodged in his throat. There was a dark blur, and suddenly the grip on her arms fell away. It was immediately replaced by a strong handful of fingers with a viselike grip on her upper arm.
“Come,” came the growled command from behind her back.
A command that her body knew so well. Delivered in a deep, powerful voice that still managed to instantly arouse, even as her insides quailed in terror.
Gregg!
She cried out in panicked denial, struggling to escape from her nemesis. “No!” This wasn’t right! Not how she’d practiced!
“Gina. Stop.”
“Bastard! Leave me alone!”
He didn’t argue. Didn’t say a word. Simply held her fast, and suddenly a sharp prick stabbed her in the arm. A million tingles rushed through her body. Oh, God. She was dead. He caught her when she crumpled.
His grim, handsome, hated face was the last thing she saw.
“SOMEONE flag down a cab!” Gregg van Halen shouted at the crowd that had quickly gathered around. He had to get out of there pronto. He lifted his lover’s limp body into his arms. “This woman’s hurt! I need to get her to a hospital!”
People generally thought New Yorkers were rude and uncaring, but the fact was, they were pretty damn good in an emergency; 9/11 had probably taught them that. Or perhaps the profound tragedy had reminded them of their all-too-vulnerable humanity. So he’d barely had time to gather Gina up before a cab was waiting by the curb and someone had opened its door for him. At the last second, he bent down and scooped up the yellow-and-blue bouquet lying next to one of her assailants—the second of Gina’s three attackers he’d killed.
Her protective detail was toast. One STORM operator lay dead across the street. Where the hell was the other guy?
“Tell the cops I’ve taken her to Bellevue,” he called as he climbed into the cab and the door was slammed behind him. He told the driver, “There’s a fifty for you if you get me there in less than five minutes.”
Naturally, Gregg had no intention of taking Gina to the emergency room. He’d left a rented car at the parking garage next to the hospital in anticipation of just such a scenario. He’d been following her since her release from Haven Oaks, expecting an attack on her of some kind—because someone else had been following her besides him. Someone other than her STORM detail. Whoever it was wanted her dead, that was for damned sure. This attack proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Of course, STORM would soon know it was Gregg who took her. It would have appeared too suspicious to the witnesses to keep his face hidden as he whisked her away, and they might have stopped him. So now STORM and DHS and everyone else in the world looking for him would be even more convinced he was involved with the terrorists. His name was already at the top of everyone’s suspect list for being the government traitor working as a mole for al Sayika. They’d all assume he was in on the attack just now, and that Gina’s capture was part of some big plot.
Whatever. He’d deal with repercussions later.
For now, he thanked God he’d gotten to her in time. She’d be fine. The dose of ketamine he’d administered to render her unconscious was effective but not dangerous.
At the hospital, he paid the cabbie his promised fifty plus another twenty for good measure, thanked him, lifted Gina from the backseat, and carried her swiftly toward Bellevue’s double glass doors. After the taxi pulled away, he veered off in the opposite direction.
Taking the parking garage stairs two at a time to the second level, he nodded somberly to those who stared, murmuring, “Chemo. It always knocks her out.” The gazes quickly turned from suspicion to pity.
During the half-hour drive back to his apartment, he took the opportunity to call Tommy Cantor.
Despite being hunted by every law enforcement officer and federal agent on the planet, Gregg had maintained contact with a handful of his former confidential informants—the ones he was sure wouldn’t rat him out to his enemies. Three of the CIs he paid very, very well. The other two were loyal to him personally.
Tommy was firmly in the latter category. A third-year Zero Unit recruit, Gregg had saved Tommy’s life on two different missions his rookie year. The kid came from a poor, rough background and lacked respect for authority. Tommy wasn’t a bad operator, he just sometimes let his baggage and bitter emotions get in the way of the job. At least, he used to. After the last occasion, Gregg had taken him under his wing and taught him how to survive—by mastering control. Of everything—his life, his surroundings, his unrelenting desire to make good, but most of all his runaway emotions. The kid had been grateful for the tutelage. Thanks to Gregg, Tommy was still alive today, and did not believe for a minute what everyone was saying about him. Nice that somebody didn’t.
“Can you talk?”
“Yep. What’s up, Cap?” Tommy asked. Being a Zero Unit operator with full access to their vast resources, the kid had been helping Gregg with research and intel, as well as keeping him informed regarding Zero Unit’s man-hunt so he could stay one step ahead of his pursuers.
“I have her.” He didn’t need to say who. Tommy knew all about the explosive situation with Gina.
“Jesus. Really?” Tommy said. “Is that wise?”
“Probably not.” Gregg glanced in the rearview mirror at the woman lying slack on the backseat. “Hell, definitely not. But I had no choice. There was an attack on her just now. In Manhattan.” He quickly outlined what had happened.
“What can I do?”
“Where are you?”
“Um . . .” Tommy hesitated.
“Never mind. Not important.” Gregg was always careful not to compromise Tommy’s mission secrets. Helping him was more than enough. Technically, the kid was committing treason by doing so.
“Dr. Cappozi, is she hurt?”
“She’s okay. But I want you to find out what Blair knows about the attack.” Colonel Frank Blair was Gregg’s former commander—well, current commander if you didn’t count the fact that he’d been AWOL from the unit for seven months. Blair was also Gregg’s number one suspect for being the al Sayika mole. It was Colonel Blair who had ordered him to bring Gina to the place where she’d been kidnapped by the terorists, and Blair who’d sent Gregg OCONUS—out of the U
.S.—so he hadn’t found out about it for three critical weeks, leaving the trail stone cold. Unsurprisingly, Blair was the Zero Unit commander most determined to hunt Gregg down. “And contact the police, too. I want to know everything anyone even thinks they know about the attack.”
“Sure thing, Cap. What about Dr. Cappozi? You need help? I could—”
“No, I’m good. I’ll take care of her.”
“Copy that. I’ll get back to you.”
Gregg hung up and drove around in a pattern for a few minutes to make sure he was not being followed. He wasn’t.
When he got back to his apartment, he carried Gina into the bedroom and laid her out on his bed. He gazed down at her. At the tempting sight of her lying there so vulnerable and helpless, his pulse quickened and his body grew heavy with want. God, she was so damned beautiful.
And fuck. Was he ever a bastard for thinking those kind of thoughts.
He ignored his physical need and sat down next to her. Gently, he brushed aside a lock of hair that had fallen across her face. She stirred, and he moved his fingertips to trace along her jaw. At his touch, a whispered moan slipped past her lips.
A smile tipped the corners of his mouth. She might hate him, but she still wanted him.
Good. That would make this much easier.
He picked up a silver chain curled on the nightstand. At one end of the chain, a fur-lined cuff was fastened. The other end was attached to his bed’s heavy wrought-iron headboard.
For a moment he was tempted to buckle the cuff around her wrist and snap the padlock closed, as he’d done so many times before.
But this wasn’t about bondage and pleasure.
Setting aside the restraint, he opened the nightstand’s drawer and lifted from it a much more delicate silver chain. From it dangled a small silver heart. Much better. Reaching down, he looped the bracelet around her trim ankle, and fastened it there.
Then he straightened. And slowly began to peel off her clothes.
AT NFO—the Norfolk, Virginia, FBI field office—Rebel dropped a hastily assembled file in front of Alex, and gave him a smile she hoped didn’t betray her nervousness . . . or her massive confusion.
