In fiction, Interpol was portrayed as U.N.C.L.E, sending in agents who had complete jurisdiction over local police in tracking down international criminals. But in reality, they did no direct investigation or prosecution. They were an organization created to promote cooperation and communication between agents from different countries. Which is why when he’d come across information indicating his quarry had fled to Paris, and since he spoke no French, he had contacted Interpol with the hopes they had an agent on hand who could coordinate his efforts with that of the local gendarmerie.
He’d indicated he would be comfortable working with an agent who spoke English or Hebrew. They had sent him one who spoke both. And, by the way, she was hot as hell doing it.
Talk about a win!
Or a loss.
He was still deciding.
For two hours, they sat and discussed what little information was in the file and he passed along the questions he wanted her to pose to her contact inside the Paris police. It was only after the sun had set and his stomach growled impatiently that he realized how much time had passed. Looking at her across that bistro table in that tiny flat in Paris, he said the four words that would take him on a six-month journey which would end in him losing his heart…and the last chance he had at living a normal life.
“Have dinner with me…”
“I see you made a call to your source a little while ago. What did you discover?”
Grafton’s highbrow English accent pulled Angel from his reverie. Or should he say Spider’s haughty English accent?
Oh, yes. Angel knew exactly who he was dealing with.
To his cronies in the House of Lords, the asshole was the well-respected Lord Asad Grafton. But to those who lived in the mud and the muck, he was the almighty Spider. A weapons dealer. A human trafficker. A procurer of blood diamonds and a financial supporter of piracy. A collector of assets. A destroyer of lives. The asshole of an asshole’s asshole.
But he’s finally met his match, Angel thought, hiding a secret smile.
“He has agreed to meet with me,” he told Grafton, momentarily dismayed by the sound of his own voice after having spent so much time as his former self inside his head. Of all the metamorphoses he had gone through in the name of protecting Western civilization, the stuff done to his vocal cords was the most jarring. He sounded like a lifelong smoker when, in fact, he’d never taken a single puff. “But I have to go to him. He refuses to come to me,” he added.
Grafton frowned. “Go to him where?”
“Moldova. He claims he is scared to leave. Too many of his comrades have been seized by the authorities when they tried to spirit their materials out of the country.”
“Thanks in large part to you, no doubt.”
Angel lifted a brow and shrugged. In the two weeks he’d been in Grafton’s employ—Ha! Employ? More like he’d been Grafton’s prisoner, although Grafton did insist on paying him handsomely, just as he insisted with all his flunkies.
Angel suspected Grafton’s reasons for the compensation were twofold. First, by paying people to do his dirty work, Grafton made them complicit in his crimes. Second, money bought allegiance. Dangle a big enough carrot and even the best intentioned, most noble rabbit would be tempted to take a bite.
But that was neither here nor there. Because the point was that in the two weeks Angel had been in Grafton’s “employ,” he’d learned the man hated nothing worse than indifference or reticence. Grafton was used to people falling all over themselves to do or say anything he wanted. Angel’s sadistic streak made him go out of his way to do the exact opposite.
It was fascinating. The more he clammed up, the more Grafton talked.
“Oh, come now, Angel,” Grafton scoffed. “Surely you realize I know more about you than what I revealed the night we met? Given the task I’ve set for you, you must have figured out that I’m up to speed on everything you’ve been doing since your escape from Iran.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. You’ve been using your expertise in black-market fissile materials and your contacts within spy networks to help Western governments keep the agents of an unknown shadow entity from selling its ill-gotten nuclear cache to unsavory buyers. And meanwhile, you’ve been getting closer and closer to finding out exactly who that shadow entity is.”
Once again, Angel had to work to contain a secret smile.
Facts were the hallmark of any decent false identity. It was much more difficult to create history than it was to tweak it. Plus, the most compelling and believable lies were always constructed almost entirely of the truth.
So, yes, everything Grafton knew about him was true.
What Grafton didn’t know was that after leaving Iran, the Mossad had asked the United States government to hide Angel. And the U.S. president at the time had decided the best place to keep Angel and his new face safe and out of the hands of the Iranians was to ferret him away inside the exalted ranks of Black Knights Inc.
BKI was a group of clandestine operatives that had been organized and funded by the president himself. Operating out of Chicago, the men of Black Knights Inc. were tasked with taking on the jobs that flew in the face of the rules of engagement or that were too politically risky for traditional forces. With the support of the Black Knights and the backing of President Thompson for the last few years, Angel had covertly lent his expertise to varied European agencies that had been working tirelessly to discover and eliminate the band of thieves inside Russia who had made off with a bomb’s worth of highly enriched uranium—Grafton’s so-called “shadow entity.”
“So?” He made sure his face remained expressionless, ignoring Grafton’s attempt to rattle him. “Do you want me to set up the meeting with my source or not?”
Grafton narrowed his eyes, the muscle in his jaw ticking and broadcasting how irritated he was that Angel hadn’t taken his bait. A second later, he shuttered his expression. “You’re sure this is the right guy? For two bloody weeks you’ve been telling me you couldn’t be certain.”
“For two weeks, he did not trust me enough to answer any of my questions. And without the answers to those questions, there was no way I could know if he was a legitimate seller or not.”
“And now you know?”
Angel nodded.
“How?”
“He finally admitted where his material comes from.”
“And where does it come from?”
“The same restricted military installation in Russia where all the other samples I have helped to remove from the black market originated.”
Grafton’s brow pinched. “So why didn’t you capture this source”—Grafton made air-quotes—“before now?”
“Because I only became aware of his identity sixteen hours before you summoned me here.”
“It wasn’t a summons. It was an invitation.”
Angel indulged in a snort. “An invitation that said, and I quote, ‘I know who you really are. You have twenty-four hours to come to Grafton Manor in St. Ives or my next message on the subject goes out to the press.”
Grafton smiled. The expression repulsed Angel because it didn’t meet the man’s hollow eyes. “All right. You got me. It was a summons.” Grafton rubbed his hands together. “And how fortunate for me that you’d just become aware of a legitimate seller of the very materials I need.” Grafton glanced out over the lawn, eyes narrowing slightly as if he saw something that caught his interest.
Had Angel had less confidence in his teammates, he might have worried Grafton had caught sight of one of them in the distance. As it was, he simply waited for Grafton to lose interest in whatever had snagged his attention and refocus on the conversation.
It didn’t take long. Grafton shook himself. There was determination on his face when he turned back to Angel. “Moldova, you say?” At Angel’s nod, he continued, “Let me make a few phone calls, work out some
details, then we’ll ring up your contact and give him a date and time. I’ll pick the location.”
Instead of answering, Angel simply stared, not attempting to hide his contempt.
Grafton chuckled. “The quicker you come to terms with your new situation, Majid—”
“Everyone calls me Angel.”
“The better it will be.”
“For who?” Angel narrowed his eyes. “You or me?”
“Both of us.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Grafton’s smile became a sneer. “Careful, Angel. Right now I need you. So it behooves me to keep you alive and in one piece. But that might not always be the case. Which means you should do your best to make me like you.”
“Like I said”—Angel smiled, taking a page from Grafton’s book and not letting it touch his eyes—“go fuck yourself.”
The muscle in Grafton’s jaw gave another fitful tick before he turned and stomped into the house. Angel didn’t swivel around in the deck chair to watch him go. Instead, he thought about all the ways he could kill the bastard with his bare hands.
It was a truly gratifying mental exercise.
“You shouldn’t grind his gears like that.”
Angel closed his eyes at the sound of her voice. It was still smooth and cultured. It still reminded him of sweet milk chocolate.
“Why? Because he will sic the Iranians on me? Kill me himself?”
“Yes and yes.” Sonya claimed the deck chair next to his. Today she wore her usual work uniform of tailored trousers and a form-fitting button-up blouse. Some things hadn’t changed. Her wardrobe still managed to look both professional and yet ridiculously sexy.
Then again, some things had changed. Gone was the hot-pink fingernail polish. In its place were bare nails filed down to a subdued length.
It was a stark reminder that the woman sitting beside him was not the same woman he’d met in Paris all those years ago. The woman who had glowed, so full of color and light that she reminded him of a Lite-Brite. The woman who had feared nothing, who had laughed with him and loved with him and made him want to be a better man, the ultimate man. In the place of that woman was a traitor, a no-account bootlicker of one of the world’s most vile men and—
He cut off his thoughts, shoving to a stand.
He couldn’t bear to breathe the same air she breathed or smell her sweet perfume that still reminded him of freesia and apricot blossoms. The sad truth of the matter was that despite how far she’d fallen, despite what she’d become, there was a part of him that still loved her.
All of him still wanted her…
Chapter 2
“Why do you scurry away like a roach in the sunlight anytime you see me?”
Sonya posed the question to Angel’s retreating back. When he stopped in his tracks, his shoulders snapping straight, she noted, not for the first time, that it wasn’t just his face that was pure perfection. His physique fell into that category too.
He had that quintessentially male V-shape. Wide shoulders tapered down to a slim waist that gave way to a high, tight ass and long, muscular legs. His arms were roped with power. Veins stood out in sharp relief against the tan skin over his forearms and biceps.
To put it simply, he was a study in masculine architecture and Mother Nature had injected him with more than his fair share of that most potent drug: testosterone.
Sonya had been suffering a bad case of Forbidden Fruit Syndrome since he’d walked into the manor. Which was absurd because… Number one, she’d didn’t know him from Adam and what she did know about him, that he was the Prince of Shadows, should have had her shaking in her boots—so, okay, in truth she was, she did anytime he got within ten feet of her. Number two, he was working with Grafton, the scum of the earth, to acquire a bomb’s worth of fissile materials, which pretty much made him the worst of the worst. And number three, she’d only felt instant attraction once before, a long time ago when she’d met a very different, but no less beautiful and mysterious man. She’d fallen for that man so hard and so fast her head had spun. And the landing? It had nearly killed her. She wouldn’t survive another one like it.
No way. No how.
So yeah. She’d be smart to take all her unseemly and ill-fated lustful thoughts and bury them deep. Digging a fantasy twenty-foot grave, she imagined tossing her ridiculous libido inside and then throwing mounds of dirt over the top of it.
There. Done. She wiped imaginary hands and nodded with satisfaction.
Slowly, Angel turned to face her, those hell-back eyes narrowing as they went on a leisurely tour of her body, taking rest stops at particularly interesting spots.
Her stupid, undead libido crawled out of its freshly dug grave. Suddenly, she could feel her pulse pounding in all the sensitive areas of her body. Lips. Breasts. Between her legs.
Ugh! She began mentally herding her libido back toward the yawning maw of its hopefully final resting place. This time she was determined to throw it in and cover it with concrete.
I mean, seriously? What the hell is wrong with me?
“I was unaware I scurried away like a roach in the sunlight,” he said in that raspy, ruined voice, with that odd formality that made it impossible to pinpoint where he was from.
No doubt that was his objective. He was making certain that, along with the vocal cord scouring, no voice recognition software could identify him.
“Well, you do,” she assured him.
“Why would you care?”
Shit. He had her there. Why did she care?
She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Nothing came out. Not a single word.
The man should be crowned the high king of shutting down conversations. She’d watched him do it to Grafton more than a dozen times over the past two weeks. This was the first time he’d done it to her, however. Probably because this was the first time he’d deigned to talk to her for more than ten seconds.
“Take a breath,” he instructed after what seemed like an eternity had passed. “It will help you relax.”
“Who says I’m not relaxed?”
“Me.”
“And how the hell would you know if I’m relaxed or not?”
“Your shoulders aligning themselves with your earlobes was my first clue. The sound of your jaw grinding your molars to dust was my second.”
Busted.
Blowing out a windy breath, she forced her tense shoulders down. “There. Better?”
He shrugged like he couldn’t care less one way or the other. But then he asked, “I am also confused why you would care if I…grind Grafton’s gears, as you so eloquently put it.”
A knife strike of memory stabbed into Sonya’s brain. As you so eloquently put it. It was the phrase Mark had always used when she whipped out her American slang.
“Because I don’t want to see a good man die,” she told Angel truthfully.
“Are you so sure I am a good man?”
“If you are who Grafton says you are, then your reputation precedes you.”
He was quiet after that. Too quiet. With no conversation to use as a distraction, she was forced to focus on nothing but his intense stare. It was enough to make her shift from foot to foot.
When she couldn’t stand it a second more, she added, “And besides, I’m pretty good at reading people.”
“You should not give yourself too much credit.”
Wow. Okay. So…
“You don’t like me very much, do you?” She eyed him closely.
“I do not know you.”
She chuckled but there was no humor in it. “That’s true. But it doesn’t change the fact that you don’t like me.”
Angel neither agreed nor disagreed. And, as always, his expression gave nothing away. Funny, since she got the impression that beneath his cold, calculating facade roiled a fiery cauldron
of emotion. She shivered at the thought of what it might be like to stand beside him when and if he ever allowed those red-hot emotions to bubble to the surface.
“Do you mind if I ask why?” She lowered her voice. Not that she wanted an intimate conversation. That was impossible given the goon squad that patrolled the grounds at Grafton Manor and followed Angel around like hulking, neck-bearded shadows. But neither did she want their exchange broadcast over the entire property.
“Why what?” he asked.
“Why you don’t like me?”
“What is there to like?”
Sonya wasn’t sure what she’d expected him to say, but it wasn’t that. “Excuse me?”
“I said, what is there to like?”
“Yeah.” She pursed her lips. “I heard you the first time. What I should have said was what the actual fuck, dude?”
“You work for him.” Angel hooked a thumb over his shoulder and her attention snagged on his hand.
He really did have gorgeous hands, all broad-palmed and long-fingered. Once upon a time, hands just like that had moved over her body, giving her pleasure unlike anything she had experienced before or since. Seriously, those hands should have been registered as national treasures.
“So do you. Work for him that is.”
“Under duress and protest.”
She snorted. “And what on God’s green earth makes you think I’m any different?”
“Are you?” He raised an eyebrow, which for him was the equivalent of full facial acrobatics.
“No!” She pushed up from the chair and stomped over to face him. She tried not to notice that the toe of her left ballet flat was touching the leather tip of his black tactical boot. Feet were not erogenous were they? Especially fully clad feet? “I either work for him and do what he says or he’ll see me in jail.”
Something sparked in Angel’s eyes. Some sort of emotion. But damned if she could figure out which one it was.
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