Bullseye

by Jessica Andersen

  Nothing like that could happen between us now, she’d said, and she was one hundred percent right.

  It couldn’t, because he wouldn’t let it. He couldn’t afford to get involved with Isabella Gray again, couldn’t afford to lose himself.

  “So focus on the job and get on with it,” he told him self, shoving his cell into his pocket and hefting his duffel.

  Just before he stepped through the doors, his attention was caught by a television monitor set high above the lobby of the small private airfield. One of the twenty-four-hour news channels showed a split screen, with Prince Nikolai of Lunkinburg on one side, King Aleksandr on the other.

  He couldn’t hear what was being said, but he could make a good guess. Nikolai was calling for freedom, his father for the death of anyone who presumed to interfere in what amounted to a brewing civil war.

  Jacob felt a hollow clench in his gut as he pushed through the doors, out into the well-remembered east coast air.

  This was getting too damned complicated.

  THE CAB RIDE from the airport was silent, but charged with tension and things unsaid. Prickles of failure worked their way through Isabella, needling deeper as each mile brought them closer to her condo, where they planned to pick up her car and arm themselves from her rather skimpy arsenal.

  She fought the urge to close her eyes against the passing scenery. The last time she’d been in D.C., things had been normal. She’d been protecting Cooper’s family and planning for their vacation security.

  Now, she was disgraced.

  When the cab pulled up outside her place, she hesitated at the curb and glanced at Jacob. Throughout the journey, she had been too aware of his masculinity, too conscious of his every move or expression. On one level, she craved the connection.

  On another, she resented it.

  “Joseph and I can wait out here.” He gestured toward her home, which was half of a refurbished brown-stone with the added bonus of a garage that had been attached with fine architectural disregard sometime in the seventies. “Make it quick.”

  She would have bristled at his tone, but she was too relieved not to have him in her home. That was her space, and the last thing she needed was a memory of him to add to the emotional clutter.

  So she nodded. “Be right back.”

  In under five minutes she was pulling out of the garage in the sleek, late-model BMW that was one of her few extravagances. Joseph whistled. Jacob merely lifted a brow.

  “Nice wheels.”

  “They get me where I’m going,” she answered, trying not to care that he liked her car.

  It took them less than a half hour in midday traffic to reach Cooper’s private offices, a suite of rooms he kept away from the public theater. If there were backhanded deals—say, his family’s safety in exchange for a vote to keep troops out of Lunkinburg—then they’d be made in the private office.

  Or so Isabella hoped, because with her security clearances revoked pending the psych eval, there was no way she was getting near his office in the Pentagon.

  When they reached Cooper’s private office, she was lucky enough to nab a street space nearby. She left the BMW angled slightly away from the curb, poised for a quick getaway.

  Just in case.

  The building was intentionally generic, a gray facade with glass doors opening into a bland lobby. A stranger wandering in off the street would never know that it housed the private office of one of the country’s most powerful men. A man who could swing international policy with the direction of his vote.

  A man who was in deep trouble and didn’t want her help.

  She took a breath and pushed through the door, aware of the two bounty hunters forming a tough-guy phalanx behind her.

  “Hey, Tom.” She waved at the single security guard. “Cooper’s wife asked me to drop something off. I’ll just be a minute.” She jerked her head back toward Jacob and Joseph, who looked inescapably rough and ready, even wearing business casual in place of their jeans and pullovers. “These two will wait out here.”

  “No problem, Agent Gray.” The guard waved her through. It seemed too easy, but Isabella knew the security setup was state-of-the-art. Checks were being run on her as well as facial recognition on the men. She had maybe five or six minutes before they realized she had no authorization to be here.

  Plenty of time to do what she needed to do.

  She glanced back over her shoulder and saw that the bounty hunters had ranged themselves against the front wall, leaning back amid generic art and uninformative signs. Joseph scowled off into the middle distance, which seemed to be his habitual expression. But Jacob stared back at her, unflinching.

  Their eyes met and heat arced across the intangible contact. The breath backed up in her lungs and she nearly missed a step before she forced herself to look where she was going and walk away from him.

  We were too much, he’d said. We weren’t healthy for each other. And part of her knew he was right. She’d spent the past decade avoiding that sort of emotional roller coaster, that manic buzz of sex and confusion.

  But another part of her craved the high.

  That was the part of herself she feared.

  No matter. It wasn’t important right now, she told herself. Cooper was the focus. The target. They had to figure out what he knew, what he was doing.

  And who was calling the shots.

  Knowing that the elevator could be frozen from the security kiosk during an incident, she took the stairs up to the third floor and paused outside the Secretary of Defense’s unmarked door. The last time she’d been here was to meet Hope and the girls for a prevacation shopping trip. It was amazing how quickly things had changed.

  Heart pounding, Isabella swallowed hard, slipped a small disc from her pocket and shouldered through the door without knocking.

  She burst in on a seemingly frozen tableau. Secretary Cooper stood behind his desk, palms flat on the polished wood so he could lean forward and make his point to the man standing opposite him.

  Prince Nikolai of Lunkinburg.

  Isabella’s momentum carried her into the room before either man could react. She stumbled and grabbed for the desk to catch herself. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  A dull flush climbed Cooper’s face and distress flickered in his eyes, though she couldn’t tell if it was born of fear for his family, guilt at being manipulated by Nikolai’s father, or something more sinister than either of those things. He masked the expression quickly, blanked his face to a politician’s earnest neutrality and straightened himself to his full height.

  “Of course you meant to interrupt, though I can’t fathom why.” His eyes flickered to Nikolai, telling her that the prince had no idea of the abduction, that Cooper had stuck to his plan of following the kidnappers’s instructions. “As I told your superior, I’m perfectly safe here in D.C., so there’s no reason for you to concern yourself further with me or my family.”

  On the opposite side of the desk, Prince Nikolai smiled. “Perhaps she was not looking for you at all, my friend.” He stretched out a hand. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Agent Gray.”

  She felt Cooper silently urging her to play along with the sham, and felt the prince urging her to…what? What was the fine tension she felt running between the men? What was the urgency she sensed at the back of the prince’s eyes, and the slight tightness at the corners of his mouth?

  Did he know something about Aleksandr, about a connection to MMFAFA? Did he know Cooper’s wife and daughters were missing, that they’d been taken just before the Secretary of Defense had changed his position on sending troops into Lunkinburg?

  Then the prince withdrew his hand and gave her a tired but still-handsome smile, and her quick thoughts collapsed in on themselves.

  The prince was a good man caught in the unenviable position of fighting against his father for the good of his people. He was as much a victim of King Aleksandr as Cooper and his family were.

  Isabella set
her jaw and turned her attention to Cooper. “I came to ask you to reconsider your decision. The threats are viable. Your family could still be in danger.”

  She let Nikolai think she was talking about the threatening letters the Secretary of Defense had received before his vacation, knowing that Cooper would read the subtext. Let me help you. It doesn’t have to be this way.

  Cooper’s neutral expression chilled. “I told you before that I don’t need your help.” He crossed the room and held the door open, shoulders tense with anger, or maybe guilt. “Please leave.”

  She inclined her head as she stepped across the threshold, but held his eyes, silently urging him to accept her help. “You have my cell number if you change your mind.”

  “I won’t,” he said sharply, and shut the door behind her.

  But it didn’t latch.

  Aware of the hallway cameras, of the minutes ticking and the increasing chance that the building security forces were even now realizing that she had no business near Cooper’s inner sanctum, Isabella leaned back against the door and strained to hear the men’s conversation.

  “…can’t believe she barged in here like that!” snarled Cooper, tense and anxious.

  The prince’s lower, soothing accents returned, “She was only doing her duty. You should be grateful for such loyalty.” His tone darkened. “I know I would be. But given the number of my friends who have proven bound to the king…” He sighed. “Loyalty is important in this day and age.”

  The words sliced at Isabella. Duty. Loyalty. Two things she’d always prided herself on, perhaps foolishly so.

  “True, but so is following your heart,” Cooper answered, leaving Isabella to wonder whether the statement had more than one layer.

  “Yes,” the prince agreed, “we’ve made a great deal of progress. But—” now his voice hardened and his accent deepened the words to a growl “—we cannot let anything—or anyone—interfere with the possibility of restoring peace to Lunkinburg.”

  Silence thundered in the room after that declaration. It took Isabella a moment to realize that the rumble wasn’t silence after all, but rather the ring of boot steps on the far staircase.

  Her pulse accelerated.

  The guards were coming for her.

  Time to go!

  DOWN IN THE LOBBY, Jacob tensed when the kiosk phone rang. The lone guard answered, listened for a few seconds, then replaced the receiver. He didn’t look toward the bounty hunters, but Jacob could tell they were the focus of the guard’s peripheral vision.

  “Problem?” Joseph murmured out of the side of his mouth.

  “Maybe.” Jacob glanced around and didn’t like what he saw any more than he had the first time he’d scanned the small lobby.

  The front door was the only way in or out unless they could get past the security desk. And he was betting two things—one, that the guard had backup, and two, that the guy had a small arsenal within easy reach.

  He cursed himself for not having insisted that Isabella prep them on the setup more fully. He’d stupidly assumed it would be an easy in-and-out.

  He’d been wrong.

  Below audible hearing, he felt the vibration of running feet. Of pursuit. His heart kicked up a notch, his body tensed for action.

  Isabella can take care of herself, he told himself, she’s a trained agent.

  But though he’d known for years now that she was in the Secret Service, somehow his brain hadn’t equated that with her being in danger. Now that the evidence was at hand, he wanted nothing more than to fight his way past the kiosk and beat the tar out of anyone who dared lay a hand on her.

  “We leaving?” Joseph asked quietly when the security phone rang again.

  “Quietly,” Jacob agreed. Every fiber of his being screeched for him to help Isabella, but that wasn’t the backup plan.

  Worse, he knew if he busted in there and made a ruckus, Cooper was likely to bolt. It was imperative that the Secretary of Defense stay put.

  “Off we go, then.” Joseph led the way to the door, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. Jacob knew the pack was nothing more than a prop, a way of saying, We’re just headed outside for a quick smoke, though for the life of him he couldn’t remember whether D.C. had gone smoke-free yet.

  Then the outer door opened and Joseph stopped dead. Jacob nearly rammed into him from behind.

  “Mr. Brown? Is that you?” a softly accented, feminine voice inquired. “What are you doing here?”

  Joseph’s already tense frame froze to granite.

  Jacob moved to stand at his friend’s side, and paused at the sight of a delicately beautiful blonde in her mid-twenties. More specifically, he paused at the sight of the bodyguards flanking her and the sparkle of state jewels at her throat and wrists.

  Princess Veronika Petrov of Lunkinburg. Nikolai’s sister.

  What the hell was she doing here?

  The bubbly blonde smiled up at the scowling bounty hunter. “I’d be suspicious that you’d followed me here from Montana, except that I didn’t know we were coming here until the last minute. In fact, we’ve just arrived!” She smiled wider, encouraging him to respond.

  Incredibly, Joseph’s habitual frown softened a little around the edges. “Business, Princess,” Joseph said, his voice thicker than usual. “We’re here on business.”

  “And we need to go,” Jacob interrupted. “Sorry.”

  He grabbed Joseph and they hurried out onto the street just as the security phone rang a third time and the guard reached beneath his desk, presumably for a weapon.

  “Come on,” Jacob said urgently, “we need to get the car and meet Isabella at the pickup spot.”

  But Joseph glanced over his shoulder, face thoughtful. “Let’s split up. I have something I need to do.”

  He was gone before Jacob could argue. Moments later, the BMW screeched to a halt at the curb. The passenger door banged open and Isabella shouted, “Jacob. Get in!”

  He barely paused to feel the wash of relief that she was safe. Then a dark green sedan sped around the corner and accelerated.

  Oh, hell. They had company.

  “Get in, now!” she nearly screamed.

  Jacob leaped into the passenger seat. Even before he’d banged the door shut, Isabella stomped on the gas, cut back into traffic and blatantly ran a red light, weaving in and amongst the beeping, bleating early afternoon traffic.

  Jacob strapped on his belt, then risked a look behind them.

  The green sedan was right on their tail.

  And gaining.

  Chapter Seven

  Stupid. How could she have been so stupid?

  Isabella kept the gas pedal jammed nearly to the floor, gritted her teeth and cranked the steering wheel to the left, aiming them down a two-lane crossroad. The wheels chirped and the passenger side left the ground for a second, then two, then slapped back down onto the pavement and they were through and accelerating.

  She let out a sharp hiss of relief and shot a glance at Jacob, who was braced in the passenger’s seat, arms and legs splayed against the floor and door frame.

  His teeth flashed against his tense face. “Just think of me as ballast.”

  The words were light, though his tone was anything but. And he had a point—without him in the car, she probably would have flipped over.

  But she couldn’t think about that now. Not with the speedometer edging toward sixty and a T intersection up ahead.

  “Hang on!” She breathed a quick prayer, tapped the brakes and sent the car into a controlled leftward skid. Her heart jammed her throat when the back bumper clipped a curbside light post. The whole vehicle jolted and shimmied nearly out of control. “Hang on, baby. Hang on!”

  She hoped Jacob realized she was talking to the car, not him.

  How had she let this happen? How could she have been so arrogant as to think the kidnappers would let her waltz into and out of Cooper’s private office? And once they’d discovered her and chased her out of the building’s
back exit, why hadn’t she left Jacob behind and led the pursuers away?

  A glance in the rearview mirror showed her that the green sedan was half a block behind. A glance to her right showed Jacob bracing himself backward in the seat with his gun in hand.

  That was why, she thought. She’d needed her one-man army.

  He met her eyes briefly. “Let them catch up.”

  “With the way I’m driving, there’ll be cops here any minute,” she said, zigzagging in and among the traffic and swerving down another cross alley. “And no cowboy stuff. I don’t want anyone hurt.”

  “Me neither.” He pressed the button to lower the window. “So get us someplace nobody will get hurt.”

  They broke out of the alley and she slung the car right, toward a more open road leading out of the city proper. “I know just the place.”

  “I hope it’s close. They’re gaining.”

  She didn’t bother looking into the rearview. She knew the green sedan was getting closer. She could feel it, just as she could feel that the men behind the dark-tinted windows meant to kill them.

  They weren’t part of the office security detail, she was sure of that much. So who were they? Did they work for the kidnappers? For the despotic king of Lunkinburg? For Boone Fowler?

  Or all of the above?

  “There.” Jacob pointed at a large parking lot adjacent to new construction.

  “I know.” She sent the car screaming into the lot and swerved around to the back of the half-finished building. The megamart was being built to replace a fire-gutted strip mall, but right then, it was lunchtime quiet.

  Or had been.

  The green sedan spun in behind them, sliding nearly sideways before its tires bit into the pavement and shot the vehicle in pursuit.

  “Now let them catch up,” Jacob said calmly.

  Isabella eased up on the gas, enough so the green car could close the gap, not enough that it would seem deliberate. She glanced over and saw a glint of approval in Jacob’s eyes, quickly masked by determination as he braced his shoulders against the dashboard and leveled his weapon out the window. “Hold her steady for me.”