Among the Flames (Kisses and Crimes Book 3)

by Natalie E. Wrye

  And who was most off-guard than when they were wined and dined…?

  A once-a-year event, the rich and powerful flocked in droves to attend a formal that was more debauched than dignified, and this year, the Care for Kids charity ball had two new attendees, two brand new RSVPs that had never attended and would never again.

  I prepared myself to be one of those attendees.

  Under the guidance and gaze of Giovanni’s no-nonsense housekeeper Jessica, I was two steps closer to looking like one.

  I sauntered out of the bathroom, barefoot, a gold dress draped from my frame. My auburn hair was loose and it hung in waves over my shoulders and back, covering the thin straps that left nothing to the imagination. I looked down at my ensemble.

  “Jess… are you sure about this?”

  She nodded her approval, her blonde head bobbing. “Absolutely. Viktor’s wife, Natasha Erikkson, isn’t known for being bashful. Though people barely see the Erikksons… with the exception of the senator. Good thing he’s in a coma already. Seeing you in this outfit might put him back in one.”

  “I get that,” I grimaced. “But isn’t this a little extreme for a charity ball?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You must not attend a lot of these political pow-wows. There’s nothing charitable about this party.”

  I turned, taking in the vision of myself in the full length mirror hanging on the door. The gold fabric fit every curve. The satin that started at my breasts fell all the way to the floor, and my skin, shimmering from lightly applied self-tanner, appeared golden under the light. I marveled at how my outfit appeared to have been melted on, the shape of it cinching and flaring at all the right places, accentuating every line, every dip, every accent.

  I wondered how it would all go down—dancing, eating, drinking, dallying at the party of a man whose back we were stealing behind. I wondered how I could keep a low profile in a satin number that was as sinful as this.

  I wondered what Giovani would think when he saw me.

  The thought of his green gaze on my body made me blush, and out of all the things that could go wrong, that were wrong, my mind seemed unable to shake one unfamiliar fact: I was supposed to play Giovanni’s wife.

  I was going to touch him, dance with him, laugh with him. Help him rob one of the world’s most powerful political figures.

  And then I was going to arrest him the moment the money fell into his hands.

  I turned on my heel, almost as if Jessica could read my thoughts. I keep my face stoic while everything inside me was going stir-crazy.

  I glanced in the mirror and met Jessica’s gaze from behind me. I smiled at the slightly stout woman, knowing that if I took Gio down, it was inevitable that she and Grimm would go with him. The thought tore at something intangible inside of me, and I took a deep breath, exhaling the anxiety out.

  “I can’t believe you’re the one breaking into Fletcher’s bank account. You are a woman of many talents, Jess.”

  The grinning blonde shrugged. “Have to be… in order to work for Giovanni. I was a grey-hat hacker for the CIA for many years. I met Gio on an assignment almost a year back. Haven’t looked back since.”

  “Wow,” I commented. “And are the assignments usually like… this?” I tried to keep my tone innocent. I tugged at the hem of the dress and Jess moved into help me. She took no note of my curiosity.

  “Oh, you mean sticking it to corrupt, rich, prick big-wigs like Fletcher?” She scoffed, shaking her head, her gaze concentrating on fixing the fabric of my dress. “Mostly. It’s why I’ve stayed in this line of work for all these months. That, and the pay…” She smirked to herself as I watched her in the reflective glass.

  “Must be good pay…” I mused out loud. “And Giovanni? What color hat does he wear? Black? White?”

  Jessica walked off. Grabbing my blonde wig from the other side of the hotel room, she smoothed its bangs with her fingers, strolling silently my way. She beckoned for me to bend and I did.

  “Giovanni…?” She hummed softly as she slid the hair net of the wig over my head, adjusting the false hair to fit over the messy strands that lie haphazardly on top. “If I had to give his hat a color, it might be money green…” I swallowed hard. “But then,” Jess continued, “his motives are always murky to me. I love my work, but him? It’s almost like he doesn’t even like what he does. Even though he’s damned good at it. Almost makes me think…”

  I leaned closer. But then Jessica caught herself. She clammed up, closing her mouth with a soft-sounding thud. She flipped my faux-hair back, flashing a smile that never touched her eyes.

  “You look beautiful.”

  I tried to return the expression she had shown me, but it cracked. I looked back in the mirror at myself, marveling again at the change in appearance. I was in full imposter mode. I finally got it. The rush. The feeling of being someone besides myself.

  Covering the past with a mask. Erasing my mistakes with make-up and wiping off my own worries with a few well-placed contacts, a fake accent and a wig.

  In a weird way, this was my way of understanding some small piece of Giovanni DeSalt.

  It was a shame that I would never see the other pieces.

  By nightfall, the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation would get an unexpected message at their front doors. By morning, the international criminal known as Salt would be practically delivered to their doorstep.

  ***

  GIOVANNI

  I hadn’t expected this.

  Beauty, yes. Self-assurance, of course.

  But what stepped onto the curb outside of the Hyatt hotel—whoever stepped out onto that curb, was a woman reborn—birthed into someone completely new. A vision I hadn’t seen coming in a million years, let alone in twenty four hours.

  Sienna had transformed.

  She’d always been confident—amazingly poised. Hardheaded, beautiful with a stubborn streak as wide as the fucking Mississippi, I’d known she was a woman like none other, the rarest breed to ever step foot in the Bureau or any other place for that damned matter. But this?

  This mysterious siren coming towards me?

  This woman was other-worldly, complete with a confidence, an aura, a strength unlike anything that could have existed on Earth. To call her gorgeous would be an injustice. To imply that she was poised would be an insult.

  She was perfection. Simply put.

  She walked towards the towncar in which I exited curbside, a fire in her crystal clear eyes, a determination set in her face that even icy blue contacts could not conceal. Head held high, she extended her hand for me to take, and it took every ounce of restraint in me not to reach for it, put it around the back of my neck and fit my body to hers—to soak in some of the magic that made her the most damning—and unpredicted—surprise I’d ever set eyes on.

  I escorted her inside the waiting vehicle and once she was seated, I strolled towards the other side of the car, giving Grimm the go-ahead as soon as I slipped in beside her.

  The drive to the charity ball took for-fucking-ever.

  I couldn’t keep both of my heads cool, and as I ran through the mental notes of tonight’s mission, my mind kept straying to Sienna, wanting nothing more than to take her far away from there. Somewhere we could laugh and joke, somewhere we could talk Game of Thrones and debate books and which fast food restaurant had the best biscuits or even why she was so attracted to that Bradley fucking Cooper.

  Fuck, I’d have paid good money just to have her curse me out in some cozy café corner where we drank coffee and debated the inevitable world-wide domination of Starbucks. Anything… but what we had to do tonight.

  But I didn’t have a choice.

  The reality of the debt I’d come there to pay was hanging over my head, and even as we ambled inside of the seventeen-storied hotel where the ball was being held, I fought the urge to flip Sienna’s sexy ass over my shoulder and storm the fuck out of there.

  Our game faces on, the two of us adjusted
the tiny walkie talkies in our ears, checking the frequencies once again as we put through a quick “mic-check” to Grimm and Jessica, who were wired up as well, waiting on the other lines.

  With a quick nod between us, we separated to opposite ends of the interconnected ballrooms, working the crowd in our own ways with a “non-English” speaking Natasha-Sienna drawing the eyes of every red-blooded heterosexual man in eyesight and me rubbing elbows with every pock-faced politico.

  I checked my wire feed, whispering behind a glass of whiskey in my hand.

  “Jessica, you there?”

  “Yup,” my tried and true employee piped up. “All set. All ready to steal a whole lot of money from Senator Fletcher.”

  I grinned. “My girl… And Grimm?”

  “Here, sir,” I heard Grimm say over the line. “I’m circling around back. If you need me, you know what to do. I’ve got a couple of friends with me. Just say the word if you’d like them to have a word with the room as well.”

  I shook my head slightly to no one. “Won’t be necessary, old man. Not yet. Of course.” I switched channels. “Natasha?”

  The line was silent… before I heard a quiet crackling on the other end. “Call me Natasha again, and you’ll be finding yourself another suit after I dump my drink all over it.”

  “I’ll take that as a ‘Yes. I’m present.’”

  Sienna snorted softly over the tiny radio. “Yes, Mister DeSalt. I am present…”

  Hearing her say my name darkened my mood. I felt dangerous tonight. Like I was capable of the unthinkable…

  I took another sip of my whiskey, abandoning the thoughts. “Good. Now keep your eyes peeled. I want to make sure everyone is having too much of a good time to sneak away and check their phones… or Fletcher’s financials.”

  Thirty minutes later, and I had successfully invigorated the crowd. A couple of nudges here, a push or two there, and it was easy to get the debutantes drinking, to get the coked-out crowd dancing and doing things they shouldn’t. The money flowed. Congressman in attendance signed checks they couldn’t afford, turning them over to charity collectors in suits and everybody was happily handing their trust funds away.

  Everyone but Sienna and I.

  She slinked around the edges of the room—seen and unseen. Hovering in a spot just long enough to get tongues wagging and then disappeared just as I’d ordered earlier that night, playing her part to a perfect T.

  It was too perfect.

  I couldn’t get my hands on her, though. And where she swayed and sashayed, I secretly tried to follow, but I could never quite catch her. Could never get my “would-be wife” alone for one moment so I could marvel up-close as every other man in the room had. To let my eyes take their fill and maybe even my hands, if they were lucky…

  I called to her over the tiny intercom in our ears, taking my time with each word.

  “Natasha?” I questioned quietly. “Natasha…?”

  Fuck. Why did she have to be so damned stubborn? I laughed, secretly loving it just a fucking little…

  “Sienna?”

  “Yes?” Her voice was silky smooth. Almost as smooth as I knew her skin would be.

  “Where are you?”

  “Around,” she answered. “Doing my duty. As should you. It’s almost time.”

  I checked my watch. “Yes… It is almost time.”

  Jessica was in position, and Fletcher’s best advisors and bookkeepers were either slobbing down local social climbers or hobnobbing in the corners of the room. They were too busy trying to climb their own political ladders, too pre-occupied with putting themselves in better positions to check on the position of their own beloved statesman’s affairs. Everything was all coming together beautifully.

  I switched channels to Jessica. “Jess? You there?”

  “Yup.”

  “Got the account number?”

  “Yup.”

  “Got the answers to the security questions.”

  “Those, too.”

  “Do you have the…”

  “Look…” she nearly snapped. “Boss. I get it. I know you put in serious work to get all of this info. I’m sure fucking Fletcher’s psychiatrist and accountant was a lot of goddamned toil…”

  “I didn’t fuck…” I stopped. Shit. Yes, I did… Technically, I did get a “head examination” from Fletcher’s psychiatrist right before the Townsend wedding. And yes, I might have been on my way to fucking his accountant, but I hadn’t actually gone through with that one…

  I wouldn’t even allow myself to really consider the reason I hadn’t. One walking, talking goddess in gold sauntering somewhere around the same party…

  I switched off Jessica’s channel to Sienna’s just as she crossed my mind. I hadn’t seen Sienna in over fifteen minutes. Where was she?

  “Sienna?” I spoke low. There was no answer. “Sienna…” Still nothing. “Santiago, where the hell are you?”

  Stronger than Me

  SIENNA

  The breeze on the rooftop was balmy.

  Summer in Washington, D.C. was slightly milder than New York’s, a little cooler. Still, humid air hugged my body like a second skin, and as wind floated gently across my neckline, I swear I could smell the nearby ocean. I swear it.

  We were forty miles from the Chesapeake Bay, and it was still as if I could smell the beach, feel the sand between my toes, strolling down the sidewalk of the bay on a trip I would never take.

  New York awaited me. And for the first time since… forever, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to go. The City had always been home, in one way or another, but now it felt more like a trap, a vacuum suck from which there was no escape, pulling me back every time I seemed to get away.

  And yet I was going back. Returning to turn Giovanni in as Salt and cash in on an exchange back into the FBI, the only organization I knew that could get me close to capturing as many fucking Gafanellis as I could. Until I got the one who got away with murdering an innocent woman—my mother, in the crossfire of a deadly deal gone bad.

  I couldn’t prove it… but I knew Senator Robert “The Fraud” Fletcher was involved. Known more for poking his dick at anything that moved and pocketing secret money, I’d learned that the of-revered, sometimes-hated senator had kept policemen in his pocket, politicians in his hand and the entire state of New York by the neck.

  Which of course included the Gafanellis, who ruled the City with a Sicilian code of honor that was unbreakable.

  Once allies, something had turned the mafia against the playboy politician. What it was, I had no clue. My supervising mentor stopped me from investigating the matter further, and any inquiry I had into Fletcher’s affairs was squelched, wrapped in bureaucratic red tape, and left out to die.

  And now here I was. Practically begging to rejoin an organization that had protected “The Fraud,” turning a blind eye to what could only be described, in my eyes, as a silent “Reign of Terror.”

  I was being torn into two.

  What made the tug of war between both sides of me worse was the man who sat in between the dual parts of me—easily the sexiest man to ever smile my way, a gorgeous mystery without roots who had strangely rooted me—a man in whose company I felt more at home than I had anywhere in years.

  I couldn’t get him out of my mind.

  Or out of my ears, either.

  His voice cut through my thoughts just as my tongue felt the urge to say his name. Giovanni.

  “Sienna?” His deep voice neared on panic. “Sienna! Talk to me if you hear me…”

  I pressed my finger to my earlobe.

  “Gio? Yes. Yeah, I hear you…”

  “Sienna,” his voice deepened into a growl. “Where did you fucking disappear to?”

  I rocked on my toes, feeling an anger simmer and start to burn beneath my breast. “What the hell is your problem? I’m not doing anything crazy. I’ll be back under your thumb in no time. I know how to behave myself, Gio. For God’s sake, I only have to hold on for one more night… Ever
ything’s ending after tonight.”

  The line went silent. I could hear Giovanni breathing. I could imagine him, all dark hair and bright eyes, standing there, fuming through the barely there radio connection that linked us. I’d seen him that way before—the night we met.

  Beautiful. Overbearing. His angular face and bold eyes breathtaking to behold.

  I remembered exactly how I looked in those eyes.

  I waited for him to respond. He shocked me with the words he whispered next. They were gruff and grazed on the edge of a nerve that I was barely holding onto.

  I traced a finger along the railing on the open-aired patio and felt a chill. Giovanni’s voice rumbled low in my reddening ears.

  “What if it didn’t have to end?” he said, shocking me.

  He hesitated before saying the rest.

  “All I’ve been able to think about all night is you in that dress, imagining what lies beneath that skirt that sweeps past your thighs…”

  My stomach did a little dance. We’d gone down this road before via text, when we talked specifically about my skirt. Or rather, what he would do to everything that lay beneath it. But then there was a barrier, a line that couldn’t be crossed. Text was easier, less invasive. There was nothing I could do to stop the sounds of the man speaking into my ears, and I crossed my legs, feeling a familiar pulse beat between my knees.

  I could only say one word back.

  “Stop.”

  “I can’t…” Gio answered without waiting. “I can’t stop. Every time I think about you, something happens. Something fucking… stirs. I can’t describe it. All I know is that I can’t quit and more importantly I don’t want to.”

  I tried to interrupt where I knew he was heading. No matter how much it pained me to try…

  “Gio…”

  “Giovanni this time, Santiago. Giovanni. I told you that if I had to, I’d make you replace God’s name with mine. If only in the bedroom… or anywhere else you’d like, for that matter.

  I tried to talk louder, making my voice rise another strained octave.