On the Edge
Copyright © 2007 by Shannon Stacey
www.samhainpublishing.com
Dedication
This book is for everybody who loved the Devlin Group and wanted more. Thank you.
And thank you, Mandy, for being there to help drag me into the end zone when it was fourth and goal with no time left on the clock.
Angie, I owe you a drink for this one. Maybe even two.
Prologue
Shooting one's self out of a situation gone to shit was hell on the five senses. The scent of scorched gunpowder. The residual sound of ringing in the ears. The feel of sweat pooling in the small of the back. The acrid taste of adrenaline.
And the sight of a teenage girl with the gleaming blade of a hunting knife held to her throat.
"Law enforcement approaching from your six." The woman's voice in his earpiece was quiet and calm, a low murmur of reassurance. "Heat signatures show the positions of target and hostage, and we are negative for sniper position."
Tony moved to his left, putting solid wall at his back, keeping his eyes on Chavez. The girl whimpered and squirmed in the Mexican's grasp, her eyes pleading with Tony. Save me.
"All girls except hostage are extracted," the voice in his earpiece informed him. "Officers holding at ten-foot perimeter around your location. Some in interior hall, some outside the building.
"Put the knife down," Tony told Chavez. He heard a confirmation of the target's weapon in his earpiece. "If you let the girl go, you have a chance at bribing a judge and walking away from this."
"I'll walk away now, cabron. The girl and I are going to get in my helicopter and fly out of here. If anybody gets in my way, I will cut her throat."
Tony kept his body relaxed and his muscles loose, ready for anything, while he considered his options. Nine freaking months he'd been undercover in Chavez's operation. The job was to not only get to the Mexican child-trafficker, but to gather intel on the network of bastards who bought the young illegals from him. When the government had enough to go after the scumbags who bought underage Mexican slaves- for domestic, commercial and sexual reasons-he could deal with Chavez personally.
But somehow, somebody had blown his cover. It might have been five or fifty minutes since he'd been in his room, talking to Charlotte Rhames about the goddamn New York Yankees of all things, while checking his weapons and magazines. His fastidiousness about his gun saved his life.
Chavez's men had come for him. With Charlotte still on open comm, he'd fought for his life, fought for the lives of two dozen girls being held in the house. Charlotte had been there for every step. Every shot.
Now it had come down to this. Tony weighed the life of one girl against Chavez's countless past and future victims. He had to be stopped at any cost-even if it meant one girl had to die.
"I'm supposed to remind you the contract makes Chavez top priority,"
Charlotte said in his ear. The woman had an uncanny ability to guess what was going on, even from two thousand miles away. Frightening sometimes, but helpful. "Reasonable losses are acceptable."
Tony glanced at the girl. Her dark eyes were liquid with terror, and tears streaked her face. She was pretty, just starting to show signs of the woman she should be allowed to become. He might never know her name because she was just collateral damage. An acceptable loss.
Well, fuck that. There was no way in hell Tony was going to let that happen.
"But I know that clause doesn't mean shit to you," Charlotte continued, "so the officers are standing by for a mass assault on the room. Confusion might be your best chance."
Not with that knife being held so tightly against the girl's throat she had to lift her chin to swallow.
"We've got us a bad situation here," he said to Chavez, communicating a no-go on the mass assault through the mike.
"It's not a bad situation for me," the Mexican pointed out. "You want to be a hero, cabron, so you won't let me kill this worthless puta barata."
Tony breathed in through his nose, growling low in his throat as he then exhaled. "She's not worthless, you disgusting son of a bitch."
"He's looking for your trigger, Tony. Don't let him use you."
"Then you'll put your gun down," Chavez said, "and let me and the girl walk out of here."
If Chavez walked out into the hall, he was going to meet up with a shitload of armed Texas law enforcement, and the girl was going to get hurt.
"Okay. I'll put it down and we'll talk." He lifted the nose of his gun, slowly transferring it to his left hand. Non-threatening move. Passive body language. He bent slightly at the waist, ready to set the gun on the floor.
Chavez smiled. Then he got cocky and loosened his grip on the girl.
Tony took the shot.
The bullet passed over the girl's shoulder, hitting Chavez in the clavicle. The girl screamed and broke free, falling. Scrambling across the floor.
Chavez fell, roaring with pain and fury. Blood soaked the front of his white shirt.
Tony advanced, ignoring the sobbing child moving past him toward the door. Chavez tried to crawl away from him, but Tony could see in the man's eyes he knew his time was up.
"Chingate, pendejo," Chavez spat.
"No, fuck you." Tony pulled the trigger twice. A clean double tap and the job was done.
Men exploded into the room and Tony moved away. He sank down against an exterior wall and leaned his head back against the gaudy wallpaper. "Did we get them all out?"
"Yes," Charlotte responded. "Four of the girls are receiving medical treatment for injuries-one caught a ricochet and another was in the crossfire. A couple were hurt when the girls stampeded. Nothing life threatening. You did it, Tony."
"We did it," he whispered. "I don't think I could live without you, darlin'."
"It's a good thing you don't have to try, then. I'm not going anywhere, Tony."
He closed his eyes. It was a damn good day.
Chapter One
Much to Tony Casavetti's disappointment, his plane didn't crash.
Instead it landed with a polite little thump, delivering him safely to his date with the Tupperware party from hell.
Sean Devlin wanted all the Devlin Group agents to meet at his exec admin's home-the closest thing the agency had to a headquarters.
Something big must be up, because a meeting like this was unprecedented. Hell, many of his fellow agents he'd never even met in person.
And Tony liked it that way.
Like a mild-mannered steer, he followed the herd off the plane, through the throng of people trying to sort through hundreds of identical black, wheeled suitcases, and then toward the main exit. The crowd made him twitchy, and the twitchiness made him hypersensitive to being naked.
Not that he wasn't wearing the requisite clothes-jeans, T-shirt, leather jacket and well-broken-in roping boots-but he wasn't armed. His S&W was locked in the suitcase he was dragging, along with some forms he'd had to fill out-or rather, Charlotte Rhames had-in quadruplicate.
Even a DG agent couldn't carry a gun on a commercial flight nowadays, castrating him as effectively as a hot blade.
Where the hell was that exit? The sweaty bodies of aggravated, travel- weary people pressing against him made him clench his fist tighter around the handle of his suitcase and shift the weight of the carry-on riding on his shoulder. Tony was a loner by nature, and crowds ranked on his phobia list somewhere above poisonous snakes and only below heights. Whatever Sean Devlin had to say, it better be good.
Finally, the herd he was trailing found the exit he was looking for and they squeezed out into a scorching, odorous blast of Big Apple air. The scorching he didn't mind-he was a Texan, after all-but the pollution and the noise were like a stampede trampling his brain.
He scanned the crowd, looking for a woman whose face he'd never seen. Charlotte Rhames, Devlin's executive administrator, was scheduled to pick him up outside this exit in-he looked at his watch-four minutes. And he had no idea what she looked like. There was no file photo for Charlotte. It was considered classified which, in the DG, meant only Devlin-and maybe Alex Rossi, his top guy-needed to see it. She'll find you, he'd been told.
Tony communicated with her often by email or phone. As a matter of fact, she'd been on open comm with him when his latest assignment got blown all to shit. She'd been a cool, calm voice in his ear, calling in the local law enforcement and coordinating the flow of information between them while he was busting his ass trying not to get shot.
Yes, he'd spoken to her many times during his years with the Group, and he'd even admitted to himself on occasion that she had an incredibly sexy voice. But her ruthless organizational skills and almost maternal knack for controlling temperamental agents scattered around the globe painted a picture of an experienced, downright matronly figure. Tony figured he was looking for an older woman with steel gray hair pulled into a tight knot, maybe even toting a metal ruler.
Scary control freak or not, Charlotte Rhames was the only reason he hadn't found a way to weasel out of this mandatory trip. Throughout his eight years with the Group, she'd filled a lot of roles during their communications. Information central, cyberpartner, confidante. Always his rock. He was looking forward to meeting her in person.
And maybe, if he were very lucky, she woudn't be old enough to be his grandmother. There was something about that voice that kept him up at night.
He looked at his watch again. It had only been a minute. Well...shit.
The air was almost liquid with humidity, and he considered slipping out of his jacket. He was acclimated to wearing it as a rule, but he had no gun to conceal at the moment.
Tony looked at his watch again. He wanted this thing over with. After almost a year living with sick bastards who made their livings off little Mexican girls, he was ready for the two months of R&R he'd told Devlin he was taking. While it had been gratifying to employ the thirty-two-cent solution on the scumbags, he could still sense the burnout approaching.
Time to sleep, ride some horses, eat and ride some more.
Tony cursed the humidity. Looked at his watch again.
A raised voice further down the sidewalk diverted his attention from the time. Even with the guy's face flaming red from the heat and temper, Tony recognized him as a Devlin Group man. He flipped through his mental filing cabinet, looking for the right ID photo.
Konrad Ludka. German by birth. With the Group for about three years, if he remembered correctly. Specialized in infiltrating the crime syndicates of former Soviet Bloc nations, both in the States and abroad, with a more-than-passing knowledge of explosives and the nuclear black market.
Ludka was obviously on his way to the meeting, as well, but he'd managed to find some trouble on the way. He appeared to be involved in a pissing match with two guys standing next to an Escalade. Or rather, with one of the guys. The second guy was only watching-a bodyguard, perhaps?
Instinct had Tony's hand sliding toward where his gun should have been. Another look showed him the guy yelling at Ludka was visibly armed and bore all the hallmarks of being a paid security thug.
So why, then, would his boss so calmly be watching him swap obscenities on an airport sidewalk?
Before he could decide if he needed to unlock his suitcase and retrieve his weapon in full view of the herd, the quiet guy raised a hand.
Ludka and his adversary fell silent immediately.
Interesting. Tony made a mental note to ask Devlin if Ludka was on an infiltration assignment. Just in case, he'd stay back and not risk blowing the man's cover.
He saw the boss's lips move, and then Ludka climbed into the back of the Cadillac. The other two men disappeared into the airport, gun and all.
Tony looked at his watch again.
When a brand-new, red Ford Shelby GT500 pulled up to the curb with a throaty growl, even the most harried traveler paused to look. And Tony did more than pause when the door opened and a pair of red do-me heels appeared. Then what had to be miles of perfect, bare legs. A skirt short enough to drive a man crazy.
Especially a man who hadn't been laid in almost as many months as he had fingers. During deep undercover work, women were wild cards he didn't need to be holding.
The woman was out of the Mustang now and the entire package didn't disappoint. Even without the heels, she was damn near six feet- mostly leg-and well toned, but had rounded hips and softly mounded breasts a man could fill his hands with. Her blonde hair was cropped close to her head and tousled like she'd just gotten out of bed.
And she walked right up to him. "Hi, Tony."
He blinked, as dumbstruck as a boy seeing nipples for the first time.
He had no idea how this woman knew him, but he wouldn't mind her getting to know him even better.
"I'm Charlotte," she said.
"The hell you are."
"I am. It says Charlotte Rhames on the labels of all my naughtiest nighties, but I can only prove it if you're a really good boy."
Damn Rossi and Gallagher for not giving him a heads-up on this piece of work. He'd talked with those guys about the woman who ran all things organizational and administrative for the Group and kept more secrets than a teenaged girl's diary. Neither guy had ever said one damn thing about her being a walking wet dream.
He let a slow grin ease over his face. If his rock wanted to kick their mild tele-flirtation up a notch, he was game. "I bet you labeled your panties, too. So we can find a private spot and you can prove it right now."
She stepped real close and licked her red frosted lips. Goddamn, but he was never going to hear her voice on comm again without picturing that little move.
"I would, but I'm not wearing any panties."
Charlotte turned and walked back to the car. She put a little extra swing in her stride, knowing the man's eyes would follow her ass like it was a hypnotist's watch.
So this was Tony Casavetti in the flesh-lean, tan and nicely muscular flesh. Despite having a starring role in many of her XXX mental movies, his file photo did not do justice to the man himself.
He was tall-just the right height to dance with while wearing killer stilettos. Well-broken-in jeans hugged a really fine ass, and even more broken-in leather boots and jacket gave him a decidedly bad-ass cowboy look.
Charlotte had a lifelong thing for bad-ass cowboys. The world could keep Tom Cruise and Orlando Bloom. She'd take her Sam Elliott, Clint Eastwood, James Arness.
She'd play Miss Kitty to Tony Casavetti's Marshall Dillon any day.
And the thing about Tony was his delicious physique wasn't even the best part of him. She'd been on the comm system with him during the good times and the downright horrific, and she liked the man he was.
Decent, intense, smart. He wasn't as coolly detached as Alex Rossi and Gallagher when an operation got interesting. Tony's emotions fueled his temper and he tended to go balls-to-the-wall toward his objective.
In the eight years she'd known Tony, she'd come to see him as the complete package. And now she finally had the opportunity to maybe take him home and unwrap him.
After popping the Mustang's trunk, she stepped back to let him dump his suitcase. He dropped the carry-on bag next to it, then stripped off the leather jacket. Charlotte admired the smooth rippling of his biceps as Tony unzipped the suitcase and removed a lockbox. He pulled a key from his pocket and a moment later was strapping on a holster.
Unfortunately, his next step was slipping the jacket back on.
Tony closed the trunk and rolled his shoulders. "Much better."
Once they were buckled in and navigating through the city as slowly as she could get away with without being obvious, Charlotte glanced over at her passenger's rugged profile. It was no accident she'd been free to meet Tony Casavetti's plane.
She'd been waiting a long time to spend a few minutes with this agent, and the tall, dark and silent thing wasn't cutting it. "How was your flight?"
"Commercial."
"Sorry, but we've only got the one jet. We did spring for first class, though."
"I'd have felt better about the extra helping of shitty peanuts if I'd been armed." There was a relaxed, almost amused tone in his voice that she found encouraging.
"That's one of the key bullet points of new and improved Homeland Security-not giving shitty peanuts to armed airline passengers."
He laughed-a husky baritone-and Charlotte realized it was the first time she'd heard it. She'd heard Tony's calm, slightly southern-accented voice give status reports. She'd heard him hissing live surveillance into the comm, and screaming orders into it when the shit really hit the fan.
But she'd never heard him laugh. She wanted to hear it more often.
"We would have given you a weapon, you know," she said.
He shook his head. "I prefer my own."
"A Smith & Wesson M&P .40's not exactly a unique piece."
"Like I said, I prefer my own. And she's the best when it comes to ambidextrous firing."
Charlotte mentally scanned the info sheets she had on Tony. "You're right-handed."
Through the corner of her eye, she saw his sharp look. "Anything you don't know?"
"Sweetheart, I even know you had your wisdom teeth out when you were seventeen and had a bad reaction to Demerol. There's very little about you...uh-all of you guys-I don't know."
"You don't know why I shoot the S&W M&P .40."
"True. So why don't you tell me?"
"When I was ten, I jumped into a really bad brawl. Kid managed to break two of the fingers on my right hand and I was screwed-couldn't hit a damn thing with my left. Bastard beat the living shit out of me.
There was no way I was letting that happen again."
"So you actually trained yourself to be ambidextrous?"
"Yeah. It's a secret, though."
She grinned at him. "I'm pretty good at keeping secrets. Although, on the grand scale of secrets I keep, that's not a very juicy one."
"Not to you, but the guys in the black hats not knowing I can kill them as well with my left hand as my right could save my ass someday.
Hell, it has saved my ass." He paused, then said, "So you know everything, huh?"
His tone had changed, and Charlotte had an idea of what he was thinking. Childhood hadn't been particularly kind to Tony Casavetti, and young adulthood wasn't much better. "The lives of the Devlin Group agents are open books to me. But only to me."
Tony only looked out the window, and she didn't press the issue. It wasn't an easy thing having a person know every nook and cranny of your past, as Alex Rossi knew hers.
But Tony's...she couldn't imagine suffering through what the court transcript attached to his psych file had detailed. A hard-ass Texas judge looking down at an eleven-year-old Tony and asking, "Well, son, how does it feel to know you're such a worthless pile of refuse, ain't nobody in the whole world who wants you?"
Charlotte forced herself to stop squeezing the life out of the steering wheel. This visit-the DG meeting being the exception-was supposed to be about her fulfilling an ongoing little fantasy. Flirtation, fun, and- hopefully-a weekend of smoking hot sex. Getting to know Tony Casavetti a little better. Or a lot better.
"So what's this little shindig about?" the star of said fantasy asked after a few minutes.
"Just an announcement we only want to make once, with the opportunity to hash any resulting issues out face to face."
"Sounds interesting." Tony turned to face her, one eyebrow raised.
"The Group isn't downsizing, is it? Because unemployment forms don't have check boxes for my particular occupational skills."
It was her turn to laugh. "No. Nothing like that."
"Good. And thanks for having my back when the Chavez job went to shit. Thought I was heading for a pine box that time. And there at the end..."
The thought made Charlotte shudder. She was no stranger to violence, but she hated being reminded of how often the agents found themselves-or put themselves-in the line of fire. Especially the "core" of the Group-Alex Rossi, Gallagher, Carmen Olivera, Grace Nolan before she left the Group. And Tony Casavetti. She really didn't like when Tony was in the line of fire.
"The girl he took as a hostage? Her name is Rosa, and she's been reunited with her family in Mexico. I just thought you might like to know."
He closed his eyes for a moment, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. She forced her attention back to the road. "That makes it all worthwhile," he said.
"I'm glad we happened to be on open comm when it went bad." She felt his gaze on her, but resisted the urge to turn and meet it. Let him look.
"You know, you don't look anything like I expected you to."
"Let me guess," she said. "Stout. Gray hair. Clipboard?"
"Metal ruler, actually."
"Too Catholic school," Charlotte replied, then shot him a sexy smile.
He missed it, since his focus was on her legs. "I'm not a very parochial kind of girl."
Tony's eyes returned to her face and he gave a sexy smile of his own.
"Maybe not, but I bet you'd look hot as hell in the skirt and knee socks."
Was he hitting on her? Flirting to be polite? During down time they tended to be flirtatious over the comm, but she wasn't sure how he'd react in person. She'd been told her looks could be intimidating.
She didn't care-he was in her sights for a very limited time and she intended to make the most of it. "Hmm...I have a cute little schoolgirl outfit left over from a Halloween party a few years back. I'll model it for you after the meeting."
There. The ball was in Casavetti's court, and she waited to see how he'd play it. Laugh it off? Launch into a lecture on how sex would undermine their professional relationship? Throw himself out of a moving vehicle?
"A naughty schoolgirl, huh?" Tony said in a low voice. "I'll have to remember to wear a belt."
And dammit, just when things were getting good and hot, they pulled up to her townhouse. A townhouse currently containing fourteen agents and seven support personnel, none of whom factored into her personal plans for Tony Casavetti.
She calculated quickly in her head. Meeting in a half-hour. Should take an hour or so, then more mingling and what-not. A meal. If she were lucky, in about four hours she'd be playing giddy-up with her favorite cowboy.
Tony tried not to watch Charlotte moving around the room, making small talk while they all waited for the ball to start rolling. The problem with being in a roomful of Devlin Group agents was their tendency to be pretty damned perceptive. Gossip about him having a jones for their exec admin, he didn't need.
She was one hell of a piece of work, and he was still having trouble believing she was the Charlotte Rhames he'd been communicating with all this time. Which reminded him, he'd forgotten to ask her why her file photo was classified.
Come to think of it, her whole damn file was pretty skimpy. He didn't remember much, but he remembered thinking at the time he'd pulled it up that there was nothing in it to indicate a background suited to running an international contract agency.
But run it she did. Her constant, untiring presence in their earpieces was a comfort to every agent, especially himself. He couldn't think of another person he'd ever depended on as he did on her. And now that he wasn't sitting in the hot zone of her sensual magnetism, he wasn't sure if he wanted to know that voice was coming from a face like hers. Desire still sizzled through his veins, but when push came to shove, he needed her whispering data in his ear more than he needed her whispering sweet nothings.
He was distracted from the enigma that was Charlotte Rhames by the entrance of Konrad Ludka. The German still looked tense and a little jumpy after his encounter at the airport.
"Hey, Gallagher," Tony called to the guy who looked for all the world like a beach bum, but was hands-down the best he'd ever worked with.
And the former Navy SEAL could plan a mission like nobody's business.
When Gallagher looked over, Tony gave him a "c'mere" jerk of the head.
They shook hands and exchanged "How you been?" small talk.
"What's Ludka working on these days?" Tony asked when the chit- chat dwindled.
"Konrad? I think he was working with Jones on a Greek thing."
Greek fit the look of the silent man at LaGuardia. "What kind of thing?"
Gallagher's natural relaxed state stiffened just a bit. "Greek tycoon from old money likes to make new money by dealing in underage sex slaves. Jones is in-country, Konrad's involved in a support capacity."
Support didn't really jibe with the scene he'd witnessed. If the guys at the airport were the Greeks under investigation, Ludka shouldn't be face to face with them.
"Something up?" Gallagher asked.
Tony forced himself to look away from the sweaty German. "I don't know. Ludka got in a beef with a couple of guys-could be Greek, by the look-at the airport and it just didn't look right to me."
"We lost comm with Jones two days ago." They both thought about that for moment. "I'll talk to Ludka when we're done here, see what's up with him."
"What the hell is this meeting about, anyway? I'm supposed to be down for two months."
Gallagher laughed and shook his head. "You ain't gonna believe this, man."
As if on cue, Alex Rossi stepped into the room. He was tall, of obvious Italian descent, and one of two men on the planet Tony truly trusted with his back, Gallagher being the other.
"Hey, people," Rossi said in a voice that carried to every corner of the room. "Thanks for coming."
Tony wanted this pony show over, and he wondered where the hell Sean Devlin was. With agents in from every corner of the world, the big boss man should at least make an appearance. Alex Rossi ran the field ops, but Devlin hit send on the money transfers.
He watched Charlotte take a position beside Rossi. Even in work mode, the woman made his dick want to stand up and say howdy. Since now wasn't exactly the best time, he looked around the room, noticing most eyes were pinned on Rossi.
Gallagher's weren't. He was alternating between watching Konrad Ludka and Carmen Olivera. Clearly the poor sap hadn't made his move on Carmen yet. Tony had known the gorgeous thief since they were troubled kids trying to survive the Texas juvenile system, and he knew she wouldn't make it easy on Gallagher. She'd ignore all the signs and signals and make the man grovel. She was pretty damn cold when it came to men.
Ludka was, interestingly enough, still fidgeting. He'd look at Rossi, scan the room, then look toward the door to the hallway. Then he'd do it again, all while fiddling with the strap of his backpack. He was on the far side of the room from Tony-leaning on an interior wall-and surrounded mostly by the support personnel. They were clearly a little intimidated by the pack of contract agents who'd staked out the best parts of the room- near the two big windows.
Tony nodded to Phil, a support tech in a blindingly red tropical shirt.
The man had been tireless and lightning fast during the Chavez job- receiving scanned fingerprints and returning IDs on everybody from victims to perpetrators. He was a genius with missing persons databases and probability equations, and he'd helped Tony build an intel file that was going put the hurt on child-traffickers long after Chavez had started decomposing.
"All right," Rossi said, dragging Tony's attention back to him and Charlotte. They were positioned at the top of the room, next to the hall door so everybody could see and hear him, presumably. "Part one of this meeting-you all received a written account of our little fiasco involving Angelo Contadino a few months back."
Everybody nodded, Tony included. He hadn't received a written account-too risky while he was in that deep. But Gallagher had flown to Texas in a walk-on role for the Chavez job, and he'd filled Tony in over a beer.
He'd been pretty surprised to learn Grace Nolan had left the Group because she was pregnant. If he remembered correctly, she just kind of disappeared after a job went bad in London. He'd been even more surprised to find out the baby was Alex Rossi's. Eight years later, when Danny Nolan was kidnapped and Grace showed up on Rossi's doorstep and shoved a gun in his face, everything had pretty much gone to shit.
The boy had been a pawn to keep the Group from interfering with Contadino's plans, but apparently Rossi and Grace had kicked some serious ass while stoking up an old fire.
"Grace and I tied the knot officially about six weeks ago," Rossi continued, then he paused to acknowledge the cheers and wolf whistles.
"Thanks. Now...part two, and the real reason you're all here. This is something we weren't sure would have to come out or not, but we've been picking up some whispers underground, so I want you all to hear it from me."
Tony leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. He didn't like surprises, unless they were of the Charlotte Rhames variety-and even that one was a little unsettling. She was currently standing very still, but visually scanning the room, as if gauging their mood.
Rossi cleared his throat. "Sean Devlin doesn't exist."
It didn't surprise Tony at all that the support people all gasped and started whispering to one another, but the agents gave up no reaction.
They watched...waited.
His personal reaction held more than a trace of royally pissed. Alex Rossi, Gallagher and Charlotte Rhames had all held his life in their hands more than once, and being in that position required a certain amount of trust. Only the fact they'd never let him down kept him from walking out of the room.
"Sean Devlin was a...fictional character," Rossi continued. "I had my reasons for inventing him, and those reasons ceased to exist along with Contadino. Never has that subterfuge on my part undermined the safety or the integrity of a mission."
He stopped talking, and Tony got the impression he didn't have much more to say on the subject. The atmosphere in the room was charged as a dozen or so very dangerous people considered the ramifications of this professional-and maybe a little personal-betrayal.
A mousy young woman, who just happened to be one of the most brilliant hackers on the planet, hesitantly raised her hand. "So...does that mean we'll be the Rossi Group now?"
A few chuckles went through the room, easing the tension a little.
Tony didn't join in, though. Whether the secret had ever affected a mission or not, knowing he wasn't worth letting in on it stung.
"No, it won't," Rossi was replying. "The reputation and history of this agency belongs to the Devlin name, and we don't want to mess with that.
The Devlin name also holds some personal meaning for me still, and it'll remain on the letterhead."
Tony glanced in Ludka's direction as the man started shifting his weight from foot to foot. He was sweating like a pig, and Tony wasn't the only one in the room who noticed.
"I...uh...I must take a leak," the German said, and he slipped through the open door.
From Tony's vantage point, he could see Ludka set his backpack down in the hall before he took off. In the opposite direction of the guest bathroom.
Not right. Something was definitely not right.
He and Gallagher moved at the same time. A sense of urgency he didn't quite understand drove him toward the front of the room. Toward Charlotte.
"Bomb! Go out the windows now!" Gallagher bellowed, even as the man picked up an antique armchair and shattered one of the two large plate-glass windows. He heaved Carmen through the opening, then moved toward Charlotte. Most of the agents obeyed on instinct. The desk jockeys panicked. Since Gallagher had Charlotte, Tony diverted toward them.
Rossi was reacting, too, Tony noted. He slammed the door closed and moved toward the knot of stunned support geeks. The mousy hacker made a few whistling gasps, then slumped to the ground, kicking her chair out and tripping Phil as he moved toward the windows.
The second window shattered, and Tony was aware of the room emptying. He helped their accounting whiz-an older, rather overweight lady-toward the window, giving her a boost and hoping somebody caught her on the other side.
Phil was still on the ground, clutching his knee, while somebody Tony couldn't place tried to help him up. Rossi picked up the unconscious hacker and tossed her like a doll to Tony. He caught her and ran for the window, aware that Rossi had Phil on his feet and was shoving the other Samaritan after him.
A concussion of sound, light and pain slammed into Tony as their world exploded. Somebody screamed and then it all went black.
Chapter Two
Hector Anetakis sat with his head between his knees, his muscles trembling so badly he half-expected to fall forward out of the chair, cracking his head on the marble floor.
Perhaps that wouldn't be so bad. A concussion could lead to amnesia, no?
He allowed himself to daydream about that particular affliction while hyperventilating between his thighs. He imagined forgetting his mother and his sisters. Forgetting everything he had to do to ensure they lived as the Anetakis women were expected to live. Forgetting his father, and all the bastard had done to destroy the Anetakis empire. Everything Hector-the only son-did to hide his father's sins.
It was tempting to succumb to the welcome image of his skull splitting like the skin of a rotten grape. But he didn't, because it would hurt. The excruciating migraines had become infrequent since his father's death, but Hector still lived in fear of the pain.
A buzzer sounded, and he nearly fell anyway. A glance at the security screen told him his mother was on her way up, and he had two minutes to prepare-to transform himself into the man he was forced to be.
He washed his face and changed into the fourth crisp, white shirt of the day. After taking a stiff drink, he brushed his teeth. Feeling slightly refreshed, he stared into an ornate mirror until his vision blurred.
"I am Hector Anetakis," he whispered.
He blinked and the cool, chiseled face of the son of an industry scion and one of the most powerful men in the criminal underworld stared back at him.
A second buzzer sounded. After a deep, steady breath, Hector pressed a button and a pocket door slid open automatically, allowing Olivia Anetakis step in. She crossed the threshold and the door closed behind her.
The elegant sixty-year-old woman settled herself on the settee. "I'm going to take the yacht to Monte Carlo for the month. Your sisters and the children are joining me. You should come."
Hector's stomach rolled when he thought of how much that little jaunt was going to cost. The price of mooring the multi-million dollar money pit of a boat alone would equal the GNP of a small country.
While his criminal activities had thus far subsidized the legitimate Anetakis interests well enough to keep them out of a public bankruptcy scandal, the women hemorrhaged money. He'd have to step up the smuggling to finance four women and nine children set loose in Monte Carlo.
He thought of the orphaned teens from Iraq coming in the following day. War-torn countries were gold mines of forgotten children, but it wasn't exactly a prime shipment. If he ordered the next group to be younger, the profit would be significantly higher.
Bile burned the back of Hector's throat, and he tried to knock it down with a gulp of seltzer water. "Why don't you wait a few months, Mother?
We can all go for the Grand Prix."
"Nonsense. We've had an invitation."
The bile persisted, forcing him to clear his throat almost violently. An invitation. The proof he'd managed to hide his father's sins. Olivia Anetakis attended charity functions with the top of society's food chain.
Hector's sisters and brothers-in-law were often photographed by glossy magazines, while their children were tabloid stars.
"Then of course you must go," Hector said in a voice that conveyed none of the turmoil churning his stomach. "I can't spare a month, but perhaps I'll join you for a weekend."
Once he'd set up another shipment. He'd need younger blondes to maximize profit. Riskier, but unavoidable if he was going to keep his mother's heart unbroken.
So while he smiled warmly at the woman he adored, Hector Anetakis silently plotted his further descent into soullessness, hated his father, and hoped like hell every last Devlin Group agent was now dead.
Tony shoved it all down-the confusion, the shock, the godawful pain-and pushed himself to his feet
His only somewhat rational thought at the moment was that Konrad Ludka was the deadest motherfucker to ever walk the planet when Tony got his shit pulled together.
He blinked, trying to focus his vision through the plaster dust and blood and focus his mind on what the hell he'd been doing.
The mouse. He'd had the mousy hacker.
She was crumpled on the floor, her breath an obscene wail coming out of her lungs. She didn't appear to have any obvious trauma, and she was mostly clear of ceiling and wall debris. That meant he'd probably fallen on top of her, and if he'd broken one of her ribs, it could be impaling a lung.
He tried to block out the shouting and screeching going on around him and attempted to remember the first-aid training Devlin-Rossi- insisted they all undergo. He didn't remember jack shit about collapsed lungs.
Then he remembered how the mouse had gone down. The whistling breaths and pale face. Asthma. He rolled her to her back and felt her pockets, finding the inhaler. He wasn't sure how it would work with her unconscious, but he waited until she exhaled, held her lips closed over the opening and depressed the thing as she inhaled. Waited. Repeated.
The wailing abated to a whistle, and then a hand landed on his shoulder.
"I've got her, man," Jack Donovan said. "Ambulances are coming."
The rest of the numbness began falling away as he watched Donovan pass the mouse through the window to Connor O'Brien. Hell to pay, he thought. He didn't care if they called themselves the Devlin Group, the Rossi Group or the freakin' Sunshine Band, some serious ass was going to get kicked.
"Medic!" Gallagher screamed, and Tony's heart froze in his chest.
He'd never heard the cool-under-pressure Gallagher panic before. "Jesus Christ, I need a fucking medic now!"
Tony turned. Gallagher was digging through a pile of rubble from which one arm and three legs were protruding. Tony figured it had to be Rossi and Phil. The support guy whose name he hadn't been able to recall before-Arijit Maheshwan, he remembered now-was laid out a few feet to the right. The largest chunk of door had hit him in the head and he was already gone.
He rushed over to Gallagher and together they cleared the debris.
Rossi had some serious head trauma, multiple bleeding wounds and splinter impalements, but he also had a pulse. O'Brien and Donovan helped Gallagher lift him and carry him toward the window.
Tony knelt next to Phil. They'd worked together many times, and he knew the support tech had a wife, two kids and a mother with Alzheimer's. Now he had blood bubbling up and running out of his mouth.
"Hey, man," Tony said, gripping the man's hand. "Help's coming, so you stay with me, okay?"
"Wanted....field." Phil's throat worked, and Tony didn't have the heart to try to keep him quiet. "Kick ass...like you."
"Hey. You kicked serious ass, my man. Without you, I'm just a blind idiot running around with a gun. You've saved my life. You've saved a lot of lives, man. You helped get Rossi's kid back. And you just saved the lives of a lot of little girls down there in Texas. If you wanted to be a bad- ass hero, man, you've done it. More than once."
"Tell...my wife...hero. Girls..." Blood geysered up, splashing over his face. "...love them...forever."
"Phil, hang on. Phil...shit."
Charlotte glanced around her backyard, separating her people from the neighbors and passers-by who had spilled in, assuring anybody who'd listen 911 had been called and help was on the way.
She saw Carmen, brushing broken glass from her bleeding palms.
Several agents herding the shaken support staff toward the far back of the yard. Three members of support missing. Konrad Ludka. Alex. Tony.
She'd seen Gallagher, O'Brien and Donovan go back in.
Her house was a loss, but at least the modifications she'd had made-especially to the interior walls-would limit the damage to her property. And as soon as the master alarm registered the explosion, she knew every bit of data in her office had gone poof. The electronics fried and the small amount of actual paper had incinerated in specially wired filing cabinets.
Charlotte turned to Rogers, whose job in support included acting as pilot. He looked a little stunned, but he wasn't bleeding anywhere. "You hurt?"
"I'm good."
She fished her key out of her skirt pocket and tossed it to him. "Take my car and go lock down the bird. If it's compromised, fry it."
Sirens reached an ear-piercing level, and then the yard flooded with rescue personnel, but Charlotte sidestepped them. She'd had the wind knocked out of her when Gallagher tossed her out the window like a sack of freaking potatoes, but she wasn't hurt.
And if Alex was...if Alex was hurt, she had a show to run. She gestured to Marge, the older woman who lived and breathed numbers and who primarily handled all things accounting, but was a well-rounded team member. "Your cell working?"
Marge checked it and nodded. "Kind of strange about Ludka having to leave the room right then. You want me to call in a passport flag?"
"I do. And I don't have to tell you trust just became a big issue. I might have to come to you-and only you-a lot in the near future."
Marge smiled and patted her substantial hips. "Good thing about me is I've always got my big-girl panties on."
Charlotte smiled, but it died when Alex Rossi was passed through the window. She couldn't see specifics, but she could see the others' faces, and it was bad. Really bad.
"You want me to call Grace?" Marge asked.
"No. Gallagher or I will do that. Right now you get going on that flag.
Passport, credit cards, ID, cell GPS, everything. And make it loud, Marge.
I want him to sweat before he dies."
The next person out the window came through in a body bag, and Charlotte took a deep, shuddering breath. She hoped it wasn't Tony, then immediately felt guilty. One of their people was dead, and it shouldn't matter who. But she couldn't stem the relief when she saw his face appear. His eyes met hers briefly, then turned back to the business of passing another body bag through the window.
Two ambulances pulled away, one bearing Alex and the other Janet, their shy but brilliant hacking queen. With the immediate emergency almost under control, she knew it was about time for the questions to start.
She caught Gallagher's eye, empathizing with the shattered emotions in his glance. As the sirens faded in the distance, he made his way to her, and with every step she could see his cylinders start firing again.
"We need to rabbit," he said in a low voice.
"Who's in the hole?" As she'd told Marge, trust was a little iffy right now. They'd never had a Devlin Group agent double-cross them.
"Me, you...Tony. You got support you trust?"
"Marge is in and she's quiet about it. How about Carmen?"
She watched hesitation flicker over his features. It was no secret he'd had a thing for Carmen for a long time. "She and Ludka did a job together about a year ago, and they've stayed pretty friendly since. Think of something legit, but off-site, for her to do. I'm going to the hospital. I'll call you with an update and get the rabbit hole info then. I hate leaving you with this, but..."
She managed a weak smile for him. "I can handle this. You, on the other hand, have to call Grace."
"Shit."
By the time they were gathered in Charlotte's rabbit hole-a ritzy penthouse apartment in one of the most exclusive residential buildings in the city-Tony was flat-out exhausted.
Gallagher, Charlotte and Marge were in the living room with him, the women each running laptops. Gallagher held an ice-pack to one cheek, and he kept probing at his split lip with the tip of his tongue.
Grace Nolan Rossi had been damn near out of her mind when she arrived to find her husband in emergency surgery, from what Tony had heard. And Gallagher had taken the brunt of her anguish without trying to defend himself. The way Tony had it figured, if Rossi didn't make it, they should frisk Grace before letting her talk to Gallagher again.
Tony cut his eyes to Charlotte. The flirtatious sexpot was gone, leaving in her place a lean, mean agency-running machine-who just happened to have great legs. But he understood how she'd switched gears, as he really wasn't in the mood anymore, either.
For sex, anyway. He was definitely in the mood to kill somebody- somebody like Konrad Ludka. He'd have to settle for shooting him, though, because right now Tony couldn't even drag his ass out of the chair.
One of Marge's laptops beeped and she started clicking and typing so fast Tony waited for her fingers to get tied up in knots. That was one of the reasons Tony spent so much time on the phone with Charlotte giving updates and such-he couldn't type for shit.
Marge stopped and held up a hand, as if asking for silence even though nobody was talking. "Konrad Ludka flew to Logan. A ticket from Boston to Athens was reserved for a Victor Humboldt and paid for with a corporate card issued to a minor business interest under the Anetakis umbrella. Said business is based in New York City and leases a black Escalade."
"You're a goddess," Gallagher declared.
Marge actually blushed. "The flight's already in the air. Janet would have found it faster, but the asthma and the shock..."
"We couldn't have moved on it, anyway," Tony pointed out. "We all need a night's sleep and a big breakfast before we go trying to bring anybody down."
Gallagher took a deep breath and shoved his hands through his hair.
"Okay. We've crossed paths with Anetakis before-"
He slanted a sideways look at Charlotte Tony didn't miss. Nor did he miss her pale cheeks and pressed-together lips.
"-but only in retrieving certain higher-profile packages. Then Alex decides he's going to put him out of business. Sends Jones in to infiltrate with Ludka in support. A few months later, we lose comm with Jones and Ludka's seen-after Jones goes down-arguing with presumed Anetakis personnel here in New York. An hour later, Ludka drops a bomb in our office."
"Rat bastard," Tony muttered, which was about as much as he had the energy for. Jet lag was setting in.
"Speaking of rats," Gallagher said. "We're it for now. You are the only people I can trust right now. This mission's now on a need-to-know basis and nobody else needs to know shit."
That woke Tony's mind up a little. Interesting that the man hadn't included Carmen Olivera in his little circle, considering how badly he'd wanted in her pants for a while. Probably not the right time to ask, though.
"Marge," Gallagher said, "you're here on Charlotte's say-so, in case you were wondering."
"I was...kinda. Why me?"
Charlotte looked up from the laptop screen she'd been studying. "Two reasons. After the blast, you picked up, dusted off and dove right back into the job. But mostly, because I was watching faces while Alex made his announcement, and you already knew."
"What, that Sean Devlin didn't exist? I figured that out years ago.
Mostly the way the money was handled-number patterns being my first love, you know-and then common sense."
"And you never said anything," Charlotte said. "Even to me."
"It was obvious after some thought you already knew. I was pretty sure Gallagher had to know, too. As long as it never affected a job, which it didn't, it wasn't my business. I'd made up my mind, though, if I thought it would put agents at risk, I'd call Tony."
Tony let that sink in and it boosted his spirits a little to know this smart, savvy woman considered him a solid go-to guy.
"It came into play during the Contadino thing in a big way," Gallagher pointed out.
Marge shrugged. "That was a messed-up business. And even Alex Rossi didn't see that one coming."
Charlotte gave a brittle laugh. "Even I didn't see that one coming, and I know what you all had for breakfast your first day of kindergarten."
She looked at him, then, and Tony had to look away. Yeah, she knew everything. No doubt his very extensive records had detailed how he hadn't gotten to go to his first day of kindergarten because he didn't have a permanent address in the district-just wherever his drunk mother parked the car they were living in. And he sure as hell hadn't had breakfast.
"Anyway," Charlotte continued, "that's why you're in, Marge. And that's why you'll be lead support-okay, the only support-while I'm in Greece."
Tony and Gallagher exploded to their feet at the same time, shouting over each other. Tony didn't pay any attention to what the other guy was saying-all he knew was there was no way in hell Charlotte was going after Konrad Ludka. And then what was she going to do? Go bat her eyelashes at Anetakis and ask him to pretty please stop killing her friends?
She ignored him, though, and poked Gallagher's chest with one crimson fingernail. "I can get to Anetakis. You know why."
"Rossi will skin me alive if I send you back there, Charlotte. You are not qualified to go in there."
"You can't get to him. None of you can get to him. But I can. I'm the only one with the necessary qualifications to get inside, and you know it."
Tony stifled an urge to signal for a time out. Obviously something was going on here that only Charlotte and Gallagher knew about. And, dammit, he was getting pretty freakin' sick and tired of having shit held out on him.
"I'm going," he said quietly, but they both turned to look at him.
Charlotte actually laughed. "Come on, Tony. Look at you. You're a cowboy, and there's no way in hell you're going to blend in with billionaire Greek playboys."
"I can blend with anybody. Since you know what I had for breakfast my first day of kindergarten, you should know that."
"Shut up," Gallagher ordered. He sat and stared at his hands, and Charlotte and Tony both backed off, letting him run scenarios. That's what he did, and nobody did it better.
"Marge," Gallagher said after about five minutes of pondering, "call Rogers and have him get the bird ready. Flight time oh-seven-hundred hours to Athens. Charlotte, you're not going alone. I can't let that happen. Somebody can go with you, posing as a bodyguard. But I need to be here to clean up this mess and...wait with Grace and Danny."
"No," Charlotte said. "This isn't Tony's kind of job."
"It is now. Casavetti, you-"
"You think I can't do this?" Tony demanded of Charlotte.
There was no apology in her eyes. "I think it's...not exactly your element."
Well, son, how does it feel to know you're such a worthless pile of refuse, ain't nobody in the whole world who wants you?
"I'll meet you at the bird at oh-six-thirty hours. Bring my suitcase, and send any specifics I need to know to my handheld." He grabbed his coat and his carry-on bag and walked out of Charlotte's decadent penthouse suite.
Chapter Three
Charlotte stood in the shadow of the Devlin Group's heavily customized Bombardier jet, concentrating on not looking as jittery as she felt.
As exec admin for the Group, she was accustomed to having a full plate. But now the stuff on her plate was piling up, sliding onto the table, spilling onto the floor and out the door. Her life currently resembled the meatball from that old song.
She looked at her watch. 0625.
Five minutes. He wouldn't be late.
Her gear for this job was already stowed. Rogers and his freelance co- pilot were taking care of pre-flight issues. Janet, their wonder-hacker, had been released, but was taking a few weeks off. Alex was out of surgery, still under and still fighting for his life. She wasn't thinking about Hector Anetakis yet.
That left thinking about Tony. After his grand exit the night before, Gallagher had mentioned she'd really pissed him off. She'd nodded, but that wasn't it. She'd pissed him off, yes, but she'd also hurt him.
Her flirtatious fantasies had been buried in the rubble of her house, and she didn't bother to dig them up. There was no doubt in her mind Tony Casavetti didn't like her very much right now. And the situation wasn't going to get any better any time soon. She and Gallagher had hashed out situations for another hour after he'd left, and she could just imagine what Tony's reaction to the bullet points of the plan she'd sent him had been.
Hell, she didn't even like what they'd come up with. But there was no other way to get to Anetakis, and they weren't letting him get away with what he and Konrad Ludka had done.
Movement across the tarmac caught her eye, and Charlotte sucked in a deep breath as a few of those sexual fantasies managed to free themselves from the debris.
Tony Casavetti was a vision straight out of the thick, glossy fashion magazines Charlotte had devoured in her younger years. The suit was black Armani. The boots, unless she missed her guess, were from Roberto Cavalli. The shades, Oakley RAZRWIRE, and the stride long and confident. The tattered carry-on bag had been switched out to a slim leather briefcase. Altogether the look was...well, she'd never seen so much suave and so much menace all in the same package before.
He kept coming, bearing down on her until she took a few steps backward herself, feeling the cool skin of the Bombardier against her flesh. God, he even smelled good.
"You look...delicious," she whispered.
"You weren't thinking to leave the country without your personal security, now were you, Miss Rhames?"
That little bit of Texas drawl that liked to tickle her spine was gone.
Tony spoke in the smooth, almost accentless English of a well-educated European. She swallowed hard, a little taken aback by the transformation no matter how good it looked on him.
"You know what the best thing about Tony Casavetti is?" he asked.
"You mean besides the way he looks and cologne that makes me want to lick him like a melting ice cream cone?"
There was no reaction, even in his eyes. "That expression `out of your league' doesn't apply to him, because he doesn't have a league of his own."
She was confused. But one thing was crystal clear-he had taken her comment last night personally.
"You've read my file, Charlotte. When I was eleven years old I had an epiphany standing in a courtroom, and Tony ceased to exist. I learned to be whatever the people around me needed me to be. You want a whipping boy, I'll bend over. You want a jock foster son, I'll throw that football until my arm spasms and tears are running down my face, but I'll hit the end zone. You gotta jones for a laid-back cowboy, I can be him.
You need an armed escort in the world of old Greek money, I can be him, too."
Charlotte shook her head. "No, that was the real you in my car. That was Tony Casavetti. So was the man who held Phil's widow while she cried, and the man who's going to gun Konrad Ludka down. That's who Tony Casavetti is."
"Don't ever think you know who I am. I don't even know. That's why I'm so good at my job. Now let's get settled on board so you can fill in the finer details of what I need to know."
"You definitely need to know everybody we meet will think I'm a high- dollar prostitute named Sofia."
That got a reaction. "Why the hell would they think that?"
"Because I used to be a high-dollar prostitute who went by the name Sofia."
"That's...uh, interesting."
She laughed and pushed him back out of her space. "What's the matter? Did you think you had some monopoly on a fucked-up past?
That doesn't get you a pass with me, pal."
She climbed the steps into the jet, leaving the mouth-watering vision standing there with his jaw damn near unhinged. As she always did when boarding the lavishly appointed Bombardier, she stopped and drew in a deep, leather-scented breath. The forward cabin held the bathroom, a sofa and two captains' chairs with a table.
Charlotte passed into the main section of the plane. Another pair of chairs with a table were across from another long sofa, all in buttery soft leather. Several seats had been removed and a computer bank set up along one wall with a minikitchen against the other wall. If she kept going into the rear cabin, she would find the heaviest modifications. The plush private cabin had been turned into a weapons, gear and medical station, along with a very small lock-down room for the occasional unwilling guest.
Ten hours in a plane sucked no matter which way you looked at it, but at least a customized jet like this one took the sting out.
Tony followed behind her, barely glancing around the plane. She knew he'd been on the old jet a few times, but she also remembered he preferred driving whenever possible.
"So I'm waiting for you to tell me why you became a prostitute," Tony said. "Were you dirt poor? Did your parents make you do it? Did you run away, fall in with a bad crowd?
She laughed. "Nothing so dramatic, I'm afraid. A kid at school offered me ten bucks for a handjob under the bleachers."
"Ten bucks?" Tony tossed his briefcase onto a table and sank into one of the cushy captains' chairs.
"Yes, we were dirt poor. It was the first money I ever had that was mine." Charlotte wasn't one to wallow in regret. She'd done what she'd done and it was behind her now. But she felt just a hint of shame while waiting for Tony's reaction to the selling of her first sexual encounter for a ten-spot.
The corners of his mouth twitched. "I'm trying to imagine what you bought. Pink lip gloss? Lacy underwear?"
A shaft of pain pierced her heart, but she managed a saucy grin.
"Something like that."
"Come on. Tell me what you bought."
"I paid for my little brother to have hot lunches at school." She waited for the sympathetic glance, the little clucking noises of false empathy.
Tony laughed. He not only laughed, but he laughed so hard he ended up doubled over in his seat. The very, very few-okay, two-people she'd ever shared that bit of her past with hadn't found it much more amusing than she herself did. Finally, his laughter faded into amused chuckles.
"Oh shit," he said, wiping his eyes. "The cowboy and the whore with a heart of gold. We're such a cliché, darlin'."
She laughed with him, then, until Rogers came over the loudspeaker and told them to buckle up for take-off. Then she said, "Let Operation: Gunsmoke Goes to Greece commence."
Tony's dislike of flying was especially evident during take-off. He strapped himself in, closed his eyes and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. By the time Rogers came back over the comm and gave them their altitude, estimated nine-and-a-half-hour flight time and the seatbelt all clear, their amusement had passed and it was time to get to work.
"Anetakis deals in young girls mostly-occasionally boys," Charlotte explained, pulling the target's photo up on the computer. Just seeing the image unsettled her stomach in a big way, but she focused on the job.
"Not little children-too many people would care-but still too young.
Fourteen to sixteen."
"And we've been watching this?"
"We've done some extractions on the rare occasion somebody's cared enough about a missing kid to put pressure on the right people. Rossi had an agent working on the inside to gather enough intel so international law enforcement wouldn't be able to turn a blind eye anymore. We lost communication with him two days ago. Rossi was going to assign a search and rescue team after the meeting."
"Jones. Gallagher mentioned him."
"I'm going to reach out to a local contact when we land. See if we can find any info. We're not hopeful at this point."
"Any chance Jones crossed with Ludka?"
Charlotte shrugged. "Gallagher and I discussed that possibility last night. While it's possible, keeping comm with us would have been a more sensible play on their part, so we don't consider it probable."
Tony stretched in the chair, and Charlotte turned to the computer and started pulling up more files. Now was not the time to be entertaining the possibility of that kind of distraction.
"Anetakis lives in a compound in Schinias, an affluent waterfront neighborhood of Athens," she continued, clicking through surveillance photos of his white marble palace on the Aegean. "Once there he has only a quarter of the security he uses in the city or when he's traveling. That security is never introduced to the women he's keeping around, of which there are usually several. He keeps two Dobermans trained to shred a man, but they're trained to keep females inside the compound without hurting them. And the security for his bedroom suite is on its own circuit. That circuit is shut down when Anetakis retires for the night because he's paranoid about electrical impulses and thinks the system gives him nightmares."
She became acutely aware of Tony watching her instead of the slide show. "You're not paying attention."
"When did he get you?"
"I was nineteen when I went to Hector. Voluntarily. I was there for two years before Alex Rossi took me out of there. Not voluntarily."
"Sounds like there's one hell of a story there."
There was, Charlotte thought, but it wasn't a story for today. It was for a day when Alex wasn't fighting for his life. When they could gather with good wine and laugh about the day he'd kidnapped Anetakis's favorite whore right out from under his nose and made it look like she'd left willingly because he needed information she had. How she'd, once confronted with certain evidence, thrown herself and the intel she had on Hector's life into helping Alex rescue a shipment of South American orphans.
You're selling yourself short, Charlotte Rhames-and yes, I know who you really are-because your mind is worth far more than your body.
I haven't met a man yet willing to pay me to think.
I will.
Tony slid his hand over hers. "You shouldn't be doing this, darlin'.
Not saying you can't, but that you shouldn't."
Charlotte sniffed back impending tears. "Alex helped me bury Sofia.
He's the only person I'd resurrect her for. And yes, I know he'd be royally pissed if he knew I was doing it, but it won't be the first time I've ever pissed him off."
And God willing, it wouldn't be the last. She couldn't imagine her grief if Alex Rossi didn't pull through. She...couldn't deal with that now.
"Maps of the area," she snapped, conversely both relieved and disappointed when Tony pulled his hand away, "are already sent to your handheld. Photos of Anetakis and his inner circle, as well."
"I'll look it over. But I didn't get much sleep last night, and I'm betting you didn't either. Call and get an update on Rossi and then I'm going to nap and let all this shit sink into my brain."
"Sounds like a plan." Not that she foresaw being able to sleep anytime soon with things the way they were.
Ten minutes later they were no better.
"Alex survived a second emergency surgery," she told Tony. "But he's still unconscious and still critical. There's a head wound..."
She let the words trail away. Tony didn't need anything spelled out for him. Alex Rossi might live. Or he might not.
"How's Grace?"
Charlotte shrugged. "Beyond out of her mind. But she's unarmed, thank God. Danny was just flown in."
"That surprises me. Tough place for a kid to be."
"It was the only way Gallagher could think of to stop her from catching a flight to Athens and going after Anetakis single-handed. Her parents are there, too, since Danny was with them. Gallagher or Marge will call if there's any change."
Tony stood and stretched, but Charlotte was too damn wiped out to appreciate the view.
"Time for some shut-eye," he said. "You can take the forward sofa."
He tossed the suit coat carelessly on a chair, laid out on the couch and closed his eyes. Charlotte wanted to curl up beside him. Just to be held-to feel his warm strength seep into her.
Instead she walked past him to the forward cabin to wash her face and pretend to sleep.
Tony didn't open his eyes until full cognizance of his surroundings was achieved. Stretched out as he was on the sofa in the main cabin, he could feel the powerful hum of the Bombardier's engines. Deep, even breathing told him Charlotte was still asleep on the sofa in the forward cabin.
He wasn't surprised he woke first. Even with the burden of pulling strings and greasing palms to get the things he needed last night, he'd still managed three hours of sleep. That, combined with the three he'd just gotten were more than enough to keep him going.
The modifications they'd made to the jet had required the removal of the rear cabin's bathroom, so Tony had to pass through the forward cabin to use the head. The plush carpeting cushioned his steps as he crept past his sleeping partner.
Partner. The word seemed almost foreign in his mind. He worked alone. The closest he ever had to a partner-outside of the occasional collaboration with Rossi or Gallagher-were Charlotte and the support techs talking into his earpiece.
Rarely was Tony responsible for getting anybody's ass but his own out of a bad situation, and this wasn't sitting all that well with his nerves. Especially since visions of this particular somebody's ass in a short, plaid skirt kept popping into his head.
But it was more than that, he knew. The schoolgirl fantasy was new, but affection for this woman had run deep long before he'd seen the body behind the voice.
When he emerged from the head, Charlotte was awake. She hadn't moved from her position-curled up in a ball under a soft, wool blanket- but her pretty blue eyes were watching him.
She'd washed her face before lying down, and her fresh skin and just- woke-up expression softened the edges of her sexuality. But her naked, sleepy smile was a direct shot to his groin. The impact pushed him forward and he started back toward the main cabin.
She grabbed his hand as he went by. "I'm going to sleep for another hour or so. But wake me if Gallagher calls."
Her hand was so small in his. Tony ran his thumb over her knuckles.
The strange rhythm of their relationship confused the hell out of him.
They'd known each other for almost a decade, and yet in some ways they were total strangers. Charlotte sending him data and coordinating missions he was familiar with. This soft, vulnerable Charlotte he didn't know at all.
The chemistry, though, was undeniable.
"I will," he promised.
When she smiled and closed her eyes, Tony's priorities tumbled around. Stopping Anetakis and his operation slid into second, with killing Ludka and avenging yesterday's carnage a close third.
First place now firmly belonged to sacrificing whatever it took to make sure Charlotte Rhames didn't get hurt. And it had nothing at all to do with the skirt.
He was already falling for her, dammit. The last thing he needed going into a dangerous situation with an untrained partner was rushing into a too-fast emotional clusterfuck with said partner. When feelings were involved, people made mistakes. And mistakes made people dead.
But it wasn't fast, he thought. The underlying foundation of their relationship was eight years strong. They made a damn fine team, and the new element-the sexual attraction-was just a bonus.
Unfortunately, right now, it was a bonus he couldn't afford.
Chapter Four
It had been a very long time since Charlotte had visited Athens, and when she stepped off the Bombardier, the balmy and fragrant breeze soothed her frazzled nerves. Despite her current reason for being there, she'd always been fond of Greece.
Mindful of their cover story, she followed Tony off the jet. Looking sinister in his Armani, he visually scanned the area before opening the rear door of their hired car.
Charlotte swept by him without so much as a nod of thanks-his role was to be the hired help. She was comfortable in her flirty, outrageously expensive white sundress and strappy heels, but she hated the wig. Men liked long hair-they showed their appreciation for long, gold tresses with their wallets.
Shearing off her mass of blonde had been an almost ceremonial occasion for Charlotte. She liked it short-it suited her-and to hell with what any man thought. But now long, blonde strands flirted with her shoulders again and her aggravation with what that represented manifested itself as a persistent itch she couldn't scratch.
Once she was ensconced in the backseat of the car, Tony stowed their luggage in the trunk. As planned, he didn't ride in the back with her, but sat up front with the driver-one of the hundreds of discreet contacts the Devlin Group maintained around the world.
The driver took the scenic route through the city. They'd made good time in the air and had some time to kill. She didn't look out the window, though. Mostly she kept glancing at the privacy glass separating her from Tony. She knew the personal security charade was the most logical way to explain his traveling with her, but she would rather he was in the back seat with her.
The car slowed under a bridge, coming almost to a complete stop. Her door was yanked open and a man threw himself onto the seat next to her. He'd barely pulled the door closed when the car resumed speed.
"Thank you for coming," she said, as if he'd just stepped into her front parlor for tea.
"For you, Sofia, anything. You know you have but to ask."
Charlotte smiled as the harried police officer straightened his tie.
She'd met Christopher Savakis several times over the course of her previous visit, and he was one of the very few men in Greece she trusted.
Savakis finished settling himself and got down to business. "I've found nothing about your friend Jones. There have been, however, several unidentified bodies found in the last three days that loosely fit your description of him. Sometimes it is hard to tell depending on how they died."
"Do you have access to the bodies?"
"Of course," he replied. "Sometimes I must seek identification for a case."
Charlotte pulled a tiny scanner from her purse and handed it to him.
"All you have to do is flip the switch on, then hold the scanner against the pad of the finger and count to ten. Then move to the next one. Turn it off when you're done. If one of the bodies is Jones, it will flag our system and we'll be in touch about retrieving him."
"I wouldn't like to have an open case regarding an American visitor."
"If Jones is dead, we'll give you the information you need to close the case."
Savakis turned the little computer over in his hands, inspecting it.
"How will I get this back to you?"
"Keep it hidden away. If you ever get stuck on a print, you can call the number I gave you and my people will run it down for you."
It would be a small favor compared to the one he was doing for her.
"And your people, Sofia?" he asked quietly.
She rested her hand over his. "They're the good guys, Christopher. I give you my word."
A few minutes later they dropped him off the same way they'd picked him up, and then the driver headed for Schinias.
Even though Tony and Charlotte didn't intend to be in the country long, they'd rented a small, two-bedroom villa in the upscale neighborhood. Privacy was a nice benefit, but the decision had been made mostly to protect their cover. If Sofia had come to play in her old stomping grounds, she wouldn't do it from a hotel room, no matter how upscale. Sofia hadn't been a hotel room kind of girl.
They were barely aware of their Aegean paradise surroundings as they unpacked their gear and started planning. They ate a light meal while they worked and drank liters of bottled water to keep hydrated and help fend off jet lag. It wasn't long before the pristine showcase of a home was littered with paper and high-tech gadgets.
It looked like precisely what it was-a war room.
Anetakis first. They needed to verify he was, in fact, Ludka's employer, and find out the German's location, if possible. Anetakis was their guy. And if they could destroy, or at least seriously disrupt, the Greek's criminal activities, more the better.
"We should have brought more agents," Tony said, not for the first time. "We could have found a way to take him out."
"We've gone over this, Tony. First, we kept this small for a reason.
Until we know exactly who we can and can't trust, we're not bringing anybody else in. Second, we can't get to Hector. That's why Hector has to get to me."
And every time they came to that part of the plan she and Gallagher had hashed out, Tony tried to shut it down. He'd have no part of her going into Anetakis's estate alone.
"That's not a good plan," he stated. Again, not for the first time.
"Nobody comes up with a more solid plan than Gallagher and you know it. This is what he says is our best-if not only-shot."
"Bullshit. I can't believe he'd agree to just hand you over to Anetakis after the history you have with the guy."
Only the fact the house was rented kept Charlotte from picking up a vase and chucking it at his thick skull. "It's because of that history we can get to him. And maybe Gallagher's willing to hand me over because he has faith in me. He knows I'm a professional."
"You don't do that anymore."
She revisited the vase chucking. She could afford to replace it. "He knows I'm a Devlin Group professional, Tony. He believes I can handle myself."
He stood and started pacing, his boots making tiny slapping sounds against the exquisite marble flooring. "Not in the field. You don't have experience in the field."
Charlotte sighed and set down the diamond brooch into which she'd been working a miniscule GPS device. "Being in the field is a matter of place, not experience. I've been with you guys through some pretty hellacious clusterfucks, you know. I was on comm when Alex shot Grace in London. I talked Carmen out of that warehouse in Bolivia. I was on with you when the Chavez job went to shit. That was me, Tony, every step of the way with you."
"From a goddamn desk!" He stopped pacing and shoved his fingers through his hair. "I can't let you do it this way."
"Then you're out." She said the words with no emotion and steeled herself against his reaction. "All I need is a guy who can wear a suit, shoot a gun, and will take orders. Donovan or O'Brien can be here tomorrow. I'll make the call now."
She stood and began walking toward the bar where her cell phone sat in its charger, but wasn't at all surprised when he caught her arm and spun her around.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?"
"I'm the bitch who runs the joint, Casavetti." She shook off his hand.
"With Alex down, I'm in charge, with Gallagher backing me up. He chose you for this mission because he trusts you with my life. But there's more to this job then just protecting me, and if I think you're the wrong man for the job, I can and will replace you."
She could see the fight drain out of his face. She didn't like playing that card-she had too much respect for the man to like it-but it had to be done.
He looked her square in the eye, and his gaze was cold and flat. "I'm the right man for the job...boss."
His tone sliced through her, but she didn't flinch. "Fine. Today's pretty much a loss-jet lag, prep work. During the day tomorrow I'm going to visit a few old haunts. Cafes and boutiques and such. Quick in- and-outs just to get some buzz going. Tomorrow evening we're going to grab some supper at a restaurant Hector and I used to frequent, followed by drinks and dancing at his favorite club."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Stop being an ass."
"Yes, ma'am."
It was too much. "You know, I thought maybe you and I could get a little something going, but I'm finding the reality just isn't as warm and fuzzy as the fantasy."
At least his gaze wasn't cold and flat anymore. "You're not a warm and fuzzy kind of girl, darlin'."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you're...you're like a Ferrari. Every guy wants to take a Ferrari for a spin. But when it comes time to drive something every day- for better or worse-a guy goes looking for a nice sedan or maybe an SUV."
Charlotte had way too much experience with men to give him a glimpse of how deeply those words cut. So she was what...too fast? Too flashy-too high maintenance-to settle down with? And where the hell had for better or worse come from? It was a retracted proposition, not a damn proposal.
"The truth is," she said in a husky voice, "a lot of men think they want a Ferrari, but when they finally get a chance to drive one, they find out they don't have the balls to handle her."
She spun on her heel and made her grand exit, straight into her bedroom, and slammed the door behind her. She'd made her point, so there was no sense in belaboring it. Walking out the front door of the villa would have been preferable, but she wasn't stupid enough to go out without her "security".
Tony knocked a mere few seconds later, barely giving her enough time to mask her expression again before he opened the door and stepped in. Charlotte knew she should give him hell for the intrusion, but the biting words died on her tongue. He was already on the ragged edge-tense, exhausted, off balance-and he was letting her see it.
"I'm sorry," he said, shoving his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans. "I don't know what's wrong with me, but I shouldn't have said that."
She was keenly aware he hadn't said he didn't mean it. Only that he shouldn't have said it. But she had enough emotional garbage on her plate right now, so she gave him an easy out. "You're just done in. You were undercover a long time, then flying from Texas to New York, almost getting blown up, then turning around and flying to Greece takes a toll on a person."
He wanted to say more. It was in his body language and his eyes. And Charlotte wasn't sure she wanted to hear anything else tonight. Too much had happened and too much was going to happen. Getting some sleep was the wisest course of action for both of them right now.
Tony cleared his throat. "I said it because I really want to take you to bed and that's a bad idea. So maybe if I'm an asshole, you can muster up enough willpower for both of us."
Charlotte took a deep breath, hoping her body-which was all for being wanted-and her mind-which agreed that was a really bad idea- would come to some kind of agreement before she opened her mouth. No such luck. "That would...complicate things."
But she didn't totally shut him down. Here she was on very thin ice, and what did she do? Jump up and down. And he was looking to her for willpower?
"I really want to touch you," Tony said with a simplicity ratcheted up a notch by the hunger in his eyes.
"Then why don't you?"
"I don't know. I think...I don't want you to think I think you're an easy lay because of what you used to do."
"I think you're thinking too much."
He paused, just for a beat. "You think?"
She laughed, he joined in, and the tension eased.
"What I think," she said, "is that we should both get some work done-separately. I need to call Marge and see what the chances are of getting that satellite feed over Anetakis's house. You go do whatever it is you do to get ready. Then we can get some sleep and we'll see how we feel when we're not delirious from exhaustion."
"I'll still want to touch you."
"I'll still want to let you."
The hunger and tension flared back to life in his gaze for a moment, but then he turned away from her. "Goodnight, Charlotte."
"Sweet dreams, Tony."
He groaned as he closed the door behind him, and when she finally fell into bed, Charlotte-despite the events of the last two days-fell asleep smiling.
Tony wasn't smiling at all when they stepped into Anetakis's favorite nightclub the next night.
According to Marge there was no change in Rossi's condition. Danny had been sent to a hotel with his grandparents so Grace could be sedated.
Savakis had identified Jones's body, and earlier Tony'd had to put it on a flight to New York. One of the agents would meet his coffin there and then escort Jones home to his family and help with the funeral arrangements.
Now he had to watch Charlotte pretend to be a high-class whore so she could be kidnapped by a dangerous criminal who was killing Devlin Group agents. And that was Plan A.
All in all, it made for a shitty day and he'd rather have been back in Texas getting shot at.
But, holy hell, Charlotte looked good. She was wearing an almost illegally short black number that accented her killer breasts and almost impossibly long legs. She'd left the blonde wig down, so the tiny black straps of her dress peeked through her hair. And she had on black heels he couldn't even believe she could walk in, never mind walk like a runway model.
Right now he was standing at attention, watching her dance with an ugly, fat and unholy rich man who traveled in Anetakis's circle. Charlotte had told Tony the guy had been a former client of hers before she hooked up with Hector, and he seemed to be really enjoying having his hands all over her again.
When one of the playboy's hands slid even further south and cupped her ass, Tony started getting twitchy. Then the man's fingers flexed, squeezing, and Tony's trigger finger flexed in response. He hoped her reappearance had been phoned in to Anetakis already, because he really wanted to shoot somebody.
This bodyguard gig was a bitch. Not only because it required hours of standing around looking like a bad-ass. Not only because it put him in a passive role. But because he had to be invisible to Charlotte-he couldn't talk to her, touch her. He had to blend in with the damn woodwork.
Charlotte threw her head back and laughed at whatever sweet nothings her dance partner had whispered in her ear. The subtle lighting played across her bare throat and danced in the diamond pin accenting her cleavage.
He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. The cut of his coat and the shadows probably concealed the physical evidence of his torture, but he was having a hell of a time keeping the bland, expressionless face that was part of the job description.
Finally the song ended and the man removed his hands from Charlotte before Tony gave in to the urge to hurt him. She drifted back toward Tony, glancing briefly at him. Then she did a double take.
Dammit, he must be slipping if she could read his face that well.
She murmured something to the man, who dug into his pocket and then handed her a keycard. She began walking in the direction of the restrooms and Tony fell into step at her elbow. She walked right past the line for the ladies', easily navigating a mini-labyrinth of hallways.
"Where are we going?" he murmured. He didn't like going anywhere blind.
"Private VIP restrooms. We need to have a little chat."
A little lecture was more like it. A deserved one, no less, but one he wasn't in the mood for.
Charlotte slid the card into a slot and he heard the door lock pop. He followed her into the most overblown, fussy bathroom he'd ever seen.
They didn't get little one-armed couches in any bathroom he'd ever used.
The door had barely latched behind them when Charlotte turned on him. "You need to get your shit together, Casavetti. Drop the pissed off, jealous lover act before you totally blow it."
"It's not an act." He pushed her until her back pressed against the gaudy wallpaper and she had to tilt her head to look up at him. It was the same move he'd used on her at the plane, and he liked the way she reacted to it-the hot flush across her face and the way the rise and fall of her breasts quickened. "The fact that every man who touched you tonight is still breathing is a testament to my willpower, darlin'."
"We talked about this, Tony. You're going to let me do my job, remember?"
Her job was to sit in her plush office chair and coordinate Devlin Group agents. It was not her job to throw herself half-naked into a pool of rich piranhas while he sat on the edge sunning himself.
"I'll let you do it, but there's something I want to do first."
Her eyes widened and she shook her head. "Not now, Tony. He's already going to punish me for leaving him. If he smells sex on me, he'll really hurt me."
That thought pretty much cured the raging erection problem, but it didn't deter him because he wasn't talking about sex.
"I just want to kiss you," he told her. "Because whether it's smart or not, we already have a little something going. I'll let you do your job, but I want to know you're doing it with my brand on you, darlin'."
She gave him that saucy grin he hadn't seen since she picked him up at the airport. "It'd have to be a pretty searing kiss to leave a brand."
He slid a hand behind the base of her skull and used his thumb to tilt her head for him. When his lips met hers, he felt the sizzle all the way to his damn toes. Her mouth was soft and sweet, and she felt so damn good in his arms. She trembled and he resisted the urge to press her against the wall and bury himself in her-to hell with Plan A.
Instead, he broke off the kiss and wrapped her up close to him. The top of her head rested against his cheek, and he turned his face to plant a quick kiss there.
"I can do this, Tony. I know it's hard for you, not being in control of the situation, but we'll be okay."
"When this is over, I'm going to make you forget you ever had to do it," he promised.
Hector Anetakis cursed the rollercoaster of a day that was chewing a hole in his stomach. He'd had to walk out of the meeting with Konrad Ludka before he vomited on the traitor's shoes.
Not only were the majority of the Devlin Group agents still alive, but the agency's private jet had landed in Athens the day before.
They were coming for him.
Then, today he'd received the call he'd been waiting years for. Sofia had returned to Greece. For the first time since those bastard agents had stolen her away, Hector felt almost like a whole man. Almost. He needed her back.
Now he stood in the back of the club, his stomach churning, looking for Sofia.
Then he saw her.
With a man.
Sourness rose in the back of his throat. The man was Tony Casavetti.
Ludka had sent him photos of the primary agents, and there was no mistaking this one. And she was with them.
Somewhere in the pit of his ruined stomach, he'd known it. The timing couldn't be ignored. Things Konrad Ludka had said. But he'd almost convinced himself the bastards had forced her here and were using her as a pawn to get to him.
He should have known better. But she would pay. Pay dearly.
Hector started to move. His men knew what to do. All that mattered to him now was that he was about to his hands on Sofia.
Chapter Five
Charlotte realized their plan was succeeding mere minutes after they exited the restroom area. Even without meeting his gaze directly, knowing Hector Anetakis was in the room shook her and she almost stumbled. Tony put a hand on her back to steady her, but she stepped away, schooling her expression to show her dismay at an employee touching her. The next few minutes would be the most crucial she'd ever suffered and every look, every gesture mattered.
"He's here," she said in a low voice, while making a sweeping hand gesture toward the bar.
"Be careful," he hissed, and then he turned toward the bar, ostensibly to get his employer a drink. It was important he not look back.
He needed to be oblivious and, above all, nonthreatening. If he took himself out of the equation, Anetakis's men might not bother with him.
Charlotte started walking again, making her way toward the gentleman she'd left behind. The VIP key card was still clutched in her hand, but her fingers were so numb she barely felt it there. Hector was walking her way, on a course to intercept.
When the timing was right, she met his gaze. Looked surprised.
Pleased.
He didn't even speak. He simply stepped up beside her, hooked his arm through hers and kept walking. Charlotte turned, knowing anybody in her situation would be expected to call out to her bodyguard.
"I'll kill him," Anetakis said.
She faced front and let him lead her out the main entrance, down the steps and into a waiting limo. He shoved her in, and Charlotte's heart sank. If he was being rough in public, he was exceptionally upset.
The car pulled away from the club while she concentrated on hiding her concern for Tony. Hector's high temper led her to suspect he might know why she and Tony were in Athens and who they worked for, but he didn't have to know she cared on a personal level.
But of course, the best option was his not knowing anything about Charlotte Rhames. If he simply bought into his prodigal plaything returning to Greece, he'd be much easier to manipulate.
"I've been waiting for you a long time, Sofia," Hector said, resting a ring-laden hand on her knee. "You know I'm not a patient man and having to wait makes me very angry."
Possible ways to play the situation-what he might know, what he couldn't know, what he definitely knew-ran through her mind, and then Charlotte summoned a couple of tears.
"They made me leave, Hector. The man took me right out of the boutique and shoved me into his car."
The man had been Alex Rossi, and she drew strength from thinking of him. He was one of the reasons she was here, and he'd be one of the main reasons she'd get through it.
"And did he keep you in his car all this time?"
She could still read his mood through his voice, and she had to tread very, very carefully. The man was an unbalanced contradiction of ego and insecurities, and guessing what may or may not set him off was a dangerous proposition.
"They told me horrible things about you, Hector, and-"
"And you believed them, my little pet?"
The term of endearment made her stomach roll. Bad things happened when he used it-painful things. "I was young...and scared."
His right hand came up to cup her breast, and Charlotte forced herself not to react. His finger trailed up her neck, closed around her throat. "You used to be a better liar...Charlotte."
Oh shit.
He squeezed.
For the first time in his life, Tony felt totally impotent.
Turning his back while Hector Anetakis waltzed Charlotte out the front door was without a doubt the most agonizing thing he'd ever done.
And he bore the scars of two bullets and a half-dozen knife fights, so that was saying something.
There was no fuss, no blood. Nobody had even approached Tony, though he knew he'd been watched. Technically, Plan A was being executed beautifully, but his stomach ached and his blood pressure was so high he could hear the pounding in his ears.
He had Gallagher on the phone the second his ass hit the seat of the car. "I hope you're happy, you son of a bitch."
"I take it everything's going according to plan. How long has he had her?"
"Six minutes, seven tops. I turned my back to walk to the bar, and they went right out the front door."
He heard Gallagher talking to somebody else, then he came back.
"Marge is tracking her. They're heading for the target's compound, as planned."
"I still can't believe you agreed to this."
"Dude, Charlotte's a smart, tough cookie. She'll get the job done." He was quiet for a few seconds, then Tony heard him sigh. "She got to you, didn't she?"
"You and I have been friends for a long time, man," Tony said, "but if she doesn't come out of this okay, we're going to have a problem."
"She'll be fine as long as you lead with your head and not with your dick."
Tony didn't say anything, but he was starting to worry his dick wasn't the only body part leading him around. Charlotte had only been with Anetakis for maybe fifteen minutes and he was already hot to go in after her. The eleven hours and forty-five minutes left before he could go in full guns blazing were going to be hell.
"Any news on Rossi?" he asked, since they seemed to have exhausted the pissing match portion of their conversation.
"He's stabilized, and the telemetry, or whatever they call all that beeping electronic shit, is giving signs he's trying to surface."
Tony breathed a sigh of relief, and that's when he realized any fledging feelings of resentment about the whole Sean Devlin thing were gone. Rossi was a good guy-one of the best-and in the grand scheme of things, the man choosing to use a pseudonym really didn't mean jack shit. "And Grace? How's she holding up?"
"She's stabilized, too. Emotionally. She's done the hysterical and the homicidal and the grief and more homicidal. Now she's stoic and hopeful and concentrating on Danny. We're all good here, Tony. You just take care of you and Charlotte."
"What's your take on Rogers?" Tony asked, thinking of the pilot.
Rogers had stayed on board the Bombardier, which was as self-contained as an RV, but he might need another body if he had to come up with a Plan B.
"He's a pretty solid guy and a damn good pilot," Gallagher replied.
"He's pretty good with electronics, especially anything navigational and he's proficient with a firearm-they all are, whether they want to be or not. But he's never been under fire, if you know what I mean."
Tony was going to respond, but he heard Marge call for Gallagher's attention. He waited, knowing by the anxious tone in her voice it was news on either Rossi or Charlotte.
"Tony, they arrived a minute ago," Gallagher finally got around to informing him. "Pulled the car up to the front, and Anetakis carried her into the house."
He closed his eyes, listening to the pounding of his heart. "Carried."
"Yeah."
"Fuck!"
"Listen to me, man."
He didn't want to listen. He wanted to blow his way into that marble mausoleum and rip anybody he came to limb from limb until he found Charlotte. He wanted to end Anetakis's life, and he wasn't going to do it with his S&W. He was going to use the knife he kept in his boot. The ear first...
"Tony!" Gallagher jerked him back. "She's not dead."
"Marge could confirm that?"
"No. But if she was dead, Anetakis wouldn't have carried her himself.
He'd have left her in the car and let his men deal with her. Right?"
The man had a point, and Tony latched onto it like a drowning man.
"Yeah. She was just knocked out-either drugs or he hit her."
"And she'll come to and she'll get the shit done she needs to. Anetakis deals in underage sex, but he has no history of personally inflicting extreme physical or sexual violence. I mean, he ain't a walk in the park, but he's nothing she can't handle."
"All right. Consider me talked off the ledge." Not really, but he was already walking a fine line as far as allowing personal feelings to affect his professional performance. He didn't want to give Gallagher any excuse to try to keep him out of the loop. "I'm going back to the rental to clear it and gear up."
"Twelve hours, dude."
"What the hell is it with you and Charlotte thinking I have no self- control at all?"
Gallagher actually laughed at him. "I've never questioned your ability to do the job, man. Ever. But when you're hung up on your partner, things can get a little screwy."
"I'm not hung up on her," Tony argued. "I haven't known her long enough to get hung up on her."
"Bullshit. She's been a part of your life for years. You've already met the best parts of her-her intelligence, her devotion to us and to the job, her sense of humor. Now you throw in the fact that she's goddamn hot as hell, and yeah, you've known her long enough."
"To get back to the original subject," Tony said, because he didn't want to hear Gallagher talk about how hot Charlotte was anymore, "I'm going in at twelve hours, but I'm also going to be close by, so if there's anything that can be interpreted as a distress signal, I'm going in."
"What about that Savakis guy? Any help from there?"
"Charlotte definitely didn't want him involved. He's a friend of hers, and he's got a wife and kids. We can fuck with the Anetakis family and then fly out of here. The cop can't. He'd have to stay and face the fire."
"Rogers..."
"I want him right where he is-on the bird. If I end up incapacitated, I want a back-up guy for Charlotte."
Gallagher was quiet for so long, Tony wondered if he'd lost him. Then, "We should have waited. We should have held off until the dust cleared here, then we could have all gone."
There was a big part of Tony that agreed with the man. For one thing, if they'd waited, he and Charlotte would probably have gotten to know each other a lot better by now. He closed his eyes and imagined them in her bed-she'd have really nice sheets-sweaty and satisfied and drifting off to sleep together.
It could still happen.
"Then Ludka would have been gone," Tony snapped, forcing himself back to the conversation at hand. "We're going to get him while he's still off balance and running, remember?"
"Chill, dude."
"Chill, my ass. This is the hand you fucking dealt me, and now I'm going to play it. It's too late to second guess it now."
"Just don't forget Charlotte always has an ace or two up her sleeve."
Tony leaned forward and pressed his forehead to the car's privacy glass. "Okay. And as much as I'm enjoying this little verbal tea party of ours, I need one more thing. I want a motorcycle-a fast one-delivered to the bird. If she needs Rogers, I don't want him sitting in fucking traffic."
"Consider it done. And, Tony, the Group can't afford to lose both of you. I need you to be careful and be smart."
"Sorry, man. I ain't coming back without Charlotte."
"Then vaya con whatever higher power you bargain with when the shit hits the fan, dude."
God, her throat hurt. Hell, her whole body hurt.
Charlotte rolled onto her back on the king-sized bed. The sheets were made of the finest silk, but they chafed against her pink, tender skin.
Hector had decided to begin their happy little reunion by taking her into the shower and scrubbing "the filthy stench of Tony Casavetti" from her.
The wig had further enraged him. His suit had offered him protection from the too-hot water, but he'd stripped her bare and not been gentle in the scrubbing.
She felt raw and parboiled and, thanks to his temper tantrum in the car, her voice now had an added huskiness. But she wasn't broken or bleeding anywhere, so Plan A was still limping along down the tracks.
Unfortunately, she didn't have the run of the top level of the villa as she'd expected. She was locked in his bedroom. Hector, being the paranoid guy he was, had nothing in his totally white bedroom but a king-sized, white bed. The doors to his sitting room and the massive walk-in closets were locked. She could get in the master bath, but she hadn't seen anything that made for an obvious weapon while she was being cleansed against her will.
Time to look for the not so obvious. She swallowed painfully and pushed herself up and off the bed. Her skin was a little hypersensitive at the moment, but everything else was in working order.
Fortunately, she'd been saved from discovering what plans Hector had for her newly scrubbed self when he was called downstairs.
Whatever it was, it must have been important if it was allowed to interfere with their reunion, but since she didn't have access to his sitting room and office, she had no way of listening in. That part of Plan A had seriously derailed.
She had no idea how long she'd been unconscious, but, judging by the look of the sunlight streaming through the windows, she'd been in Hector's hands for about three hours. That left her approximately nine hours in which to convince him to tell her everything she wanted to know about Konrad Ludka.
A renewed sense of urgency propelled her toward the master bath.
She couldn't be sure Tony had the patience to last the full twelve hours and she didn't want him coming in after her.
Hector had gotten wind of their arrival somehow, and there were now at least twelve armed guards instead of the usual three. The heightened activity made the dogs tense, and she'd overheard Hector on the phone, making sure his mother and sisters had already left for Monte Carlo and wouldn't be stopping by unannounced. He was prepared for an assault she had to make sure didn't happen.
Tony was one of the best at his job, but he was still only one man.
She was going to do everything she could to keep him from getting killed on her behalf.
The master bath was all cold white marble, and Charlotte shivered in her overheated skin. Since there was no sign of the clothing she'd arrived in-no doubt they smelled like Tony and were being washed, as well-she pulled a large bath sheet from a shelf and wrapped it around herself. It wasn't ideal, but at least the body parts she preferred not to share were covered.
The medicine cabinet was a bust-she wasn't going to incapacitate anybody with athlete's foot cream or indigestion cures. No hairspray. No matches. No oversized hairbrush with a solid ivory backing.
In one of the vanity drawers she found a rat-tailed comb. She considered it for a few seconds-the handle would snap off if it encountered any kind of resistance. Just by pressing the length of the comb against her fingertip, she knew it would never puncture a major artery.
But then she broke the handle off herself, kept the long, slender piece and put the comb section back in the drawer. If all else failed, Hector was going to lose an eyeball.
It wasn't enough, though. She couldn't overpower a forty-something, very physically fit man with a four-inch sliver of plastic. And the clock was ticking. If he came back and found her scouring the bathroom for weapons, she'd be very, very sorry.
She scanned the room again. Towels and toilet paper. Bars of soap.
Toothpaste. There was no cologne she could use to blind anybody because of Hector's headaches. The pipe work under the sink was more than finger tight, and she didn't have a wrench, so that was a no go.
After considering the toilet, she started moving faster. A handstitched, antique doily covered the tank and she whipped it off. The tank lid she set on the throw rug, and then she grabbed one of the bath towels. It took her three tries to fold it into a rectangle just the right size to sit over the tank and bear the weight of the doily without sagging.
As long as nobody jarred the toilet or set anything on the back of the tank, nobody would notice the heavy lid was missing. She went back into the bedroom and slid it under the mattress on "her" side of the bed. It wasn't much, but at least if she could get to it, she could clean somebody's clock in a big way.
Now there was nothing to do but wait. She was careful not to go near the windows. If Tony was watching from a distance and spotted her- mostly naked and wearing a necklace of bruises-he'd start thinking she didn't have everything under control.
She laughed at herself and it sounded loud in the empty room. All she had at her disposal were a bath towel, a slab of porcelain and a broken comb handle, but she thought everything was under control? A sure sign she belonged with the Devlin Group.
She curled up on the edge of the bed, the bath sheet still tucked securely around her. All of a sudden tears were stinging her eyes and she let them spill over unchecked.
She should have let Tony make love to her in the VIP restroom.
It was a ridiculous thing to be thinking about, but she couldn't help it. Things with Hector weren't going as smoothly as she'd hoped, and her chances of getting out in one piece were growing significantly smaller.
Charlotte had made a promise to herself a long time ago to never regret anything she'd done, and now she might have to break it. If she didn't make it out of here, she'd go down regretting never having felt Tony's naked body moving against her own.
She closed her eyes, filling her mind with images of him-the shock when she'd introduced herself, the bad-boy grin when they'd flirted in the car. The intensity during the aftermath of Ludka's bomb. And the hunger in his eyes every time he looked at her.
If she did get out of this situation, the first thing she was going to do was jump Tony Casavetti.
The lock tumbled and the bedroom door opened. Charlotte sat up on the edge of the bed as Hector Anetakis entered. Konrad Ludka was right behind him.
The good news was they now knew where Ludka had run off to. The bad news, if she bashed Hector over the head with the toilet tank lid, chances were Ludka wasn't going to stand around and wait for his turn.
"Crying, my little pet?" Hector wiped a tear from her cheek with one fingertip.
Charlotte said nothing. Ludka's presence indicated a professional rather than a personal meeting was about to get underway, and she was in trouble. Hector's infatuation with her was supposed to be the overall theme here.
She looked into the Greek's handsome face-he had dark eyes a woman could swim in-and simply stared defiantly. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of hearing her beg for her freedom.
He let his fingers slide from her cheek down to her throat again, and they traced the black and blue marks. "I don't like hurting you, pet. I'm not going to hurt you anymore."
He stepped back and Ludka backhanded her, knocking her to the floor.
"But Konrad," Hector said, sounding more amused than she would have liked, "he will hurt you."
The towel slipped, but nudity wasn't high on her list of problems at the moment. She could slide her hand under the mattress from here and reach the tank lid, but even if she managed to knock out Ludka, she'd never get by Hector.
It was time to start talking. "Please, Hector. Why are you doing this to me?"
"I was going to make you my wife, Sofia," he hissed.
The use of her old name and the vein throbbing in his forehead let her know he wasn't in total control of his temper. He was capable of stone-cold ruthlessness, but right now he was emotional. And emotions were a powerful weapon.
She crawled, naked, across the carpet to him, looking as submissive as possible. "I didn't know, Hector. They told me you were going to sell me like you did the other girls. That you were only treating me special so you could get more money for me."
He looked uncertain for a fraction of a second and Charlotte turned on the tears. "I would never have left you if not for their lies, Hector. I loved you."
Ludka was the wild card in the charade, and Charlotte prayed he didn't know enough to blow holes in her story. He'd only been with the Group for a little over three years, so he shouldn't have any clue how she came to be their exec admin.
"Please don't let him hit me again," she pleaded, settling back on her heels at his feet. "I'll do anything for you, Hector."
He stroked her hair, smiling down at her. "I've missed you, little pet.
Maybe I will keep our friend from hurting you...if you help me."
She forced herself to look hopeful. He was going to ask how to get to Tony so he could kill him quietly. This was manageable.
Tony wouldn't be back in their little rented villa by the time they could get that information out of her. He was also a trained professional, and they all knew there was a possibility their locations could be compromised at any time in just this way.
He wound his fingers through the short curls he hated so much. "Tell me, little pet, how you're going to help me kidnap little Danny Rossi."
Danny? Charlotte felt a sudden lightning bolt of awareness and she knew what it was. She'd heard the guys talk about it. It was the FUBAR moment, when you realized that things were officially beyond "blown to shit" and now "fucked up beyond all recognition". It usually meant somebody was about to die. And since she wasn't exactly the player with the power in this little game, there was a better than average chance it would be her.
"You see," he continued, "I can't afford for your friends to keep interfering with my business. If I have little Danny in my control, I have the Devlin Group in my control."
The poor kid had already been kidnapped once this year. Fortunately, he'd been treated well and had bounced back like a champ, but there was no way in hell Charlotte was going to be a part of putting him through that again.
Hector's fingers tightened in her hair, causing real tears to spring to her eyes again. "Our friend, Konrad, was able to tell me a lot of things about the Devlin Group, but he doesn't seem to know where the Rossi family lives. So let's start with that, little pet."
This was going to hurt. "No."
He slapped her, open-handed, across the face. "The address."
"No."
He slapped her again, other hand and other side of her face. Then he wiped both of his hands on his pants. "Konrad, wait outside for a moment."
The German grumbled something, but went out into the sitting room, closing the door behind him.
Hector crouched, bringing his face almost level with Charlotte's. "You are the only woman I ever showed my true self to, Sofia. You know why I have to do the things I do."
"You sell children into sexual slavery to save your mother some embarrassment, Hector. Guess what? Not worth it. And guess what else?
Nobody actually gives that much of a shit about your family anymore."
His face changed and, though Charlotte braced herself, the blow sent her sprawling.
"Enough of this, Charlotte Rhames. Let's not pretend anymore. You're going to help me find your boss's little boy."
"Fuck you, Hector," she snarled, crawling as fast as she could around the bed.
She pulled herself to her feet and faced him. "I'm not telling you shit."
"Yes," he said solemnly, "you are.
He went to the door to retrieve Konrad and Charlotte made her move.
She hauled the heavy piece of porcelain from under the mattress and ran back around the bed. Before Hector was fully aware of what she was doing, Charlotte threw the tank lid, mustering every ounce of strength she had to put into it.
The porcelain hit its intended mark, and then Hector's fist hit the side of her head. She landed on her hands and knees, the world swimming in fire bursts of color. He kicked her in the hip, rolling her onto the carpet.
"It's time to make her talk, Konrad."
Oh Tony, I'm so sorry.
Chapter Six
Tony's phone vibrated and he pushed the open comm button on his earpiece. "Casavetti."
"Tony," Marge said, "I'm monitoring the somewhat crappy satellite feed we managed to line up over Schinias, and we just had a toilet tank lid come smashing out a third floor window of Anetakis's house."
"A toilet tank lid?" What the hell?
"Confirmed."
He pulled out his handheld and called up the plans Charlotte had sketched out from memory. "Which window?"
"Ocean side, center of three."
She was in his bedroom. Son of a bitch.
"Photo captures from windows confirm at least eight different armed individuals in the house," Marge continued. "No sign of civilians, but we can't see into the interior."
He didn't care. If it moved and wasn't Charlotte, it was getting shot.
Marge took a deep breath. "The least activity has been observed in the windows on the west side, but it's not going to be easy to get to them."
"I'm going through the door, Marge. This will be one of those messy, non-stealthy Plan B jobs."
He was checking his gear while he talked, not that there was much of it. With their cover already pretty well blown, he was back in jeans and T-shirt. Over that he wore a vest made from the latest and greatest in lightweight bulletproofing material. Leg coverings of the same material- like chaps, only stopping at the knee-offered some protection to his femoral arteries. The vest had two easy access pockets-one containing his phone and handheld, the other containing three magazines, each holding fifteen rounds. One magazine in each of his back pockets. A full magazine in his piece, and a chambered round.
A Smith & Wesson Military & Police .40 and ninety-one rounds were all the gear he needed.
"At least let me call Gallagher and get him on comm with you," Marge pleaded with him.
"It'll be all over before then." They'd tried this the Group's way and Charlotte was in trouble. Now they'd do it Tony's way.
"I don't have experience with this," she argued, and he heard a rising note of panic in her voice. He was going to have to shut her off.
"You've done great with this job, Marge. But this next part really isn't your thing and I'm going to disconnect. If you don't hear from Charlotte or me in thirty minutes, have Gallagher call Christopher Savakis and fill him in on everything we know."
"Good luck, Tony."
He thanked her and then hung up on her. It seemed horribly ironic to him that he really, really wished Charlotte Rhames were on comm with him right now. He sucked in a deep breath. The only way to make sure she was on the next job was to go in there and get her out.
Mental snapshots of her flipped through his mind. The outrageous flirt who'd met him at the airport. The all-business exec admin standing next to Alex Rossi. And one last vision-his favorite. Her sleepy smile as she peeked out at him from under the wool blanket on the jet.
Charlotte was in the third-floor master bedroom. Between Tony and her stood two dogs and unknown number of armed subjects. He had to bypass those subjects swiftly enough to reach Anetakis before he could seriously injure or even-God help them-kill Charlotte.
No sweat. Right.
He wasn't a praying man, but he sent out a reminder to whatever was out there in the cosmos of all the innocent lives he'd saved over the course of his career. He'd never asked for anything in return, but now he wanted one thing-one life. If Charlotte came out of that house unharmed, the books would be balanced as far as he was concerned.
Tony sucked in a deep breath, threw open the door of a minivan he'd borrowed and hit the ground at a dead run. He launched himself over the low stone wall marking the boundaries of the Anetakis villa and heard the dogs.
All muscles and teeth, they came at him. Two shots and he kept going. A shot blew out the glass of the patio door and he zigged, returned fire, then zagged.
He went through the door and dove right, firing at the movement to his left. Dropped, fired straight ahead. He gained his feet and ran, jumping the fallen subject blocking the hall.
The image of the floor plans was seared into his mind and he went to the kitchen. Two more subjects dispatched. After the kitchen, he turned left down a narrow hall. A bullet whizzed by his ear, and he twisted as he threw himself to the ground, firing. There were three of them, and bullets plowed into the walls over him.
His left hand was already in the pocket as he emptied the gun into them. He stood and turned, flicking the magazine release switch. It fell to the ground and he slammed the full one home.
Finally, the utility staircase. A little tight for comfort, but he wasn't waiting for the goddamn elevator. He took the stairs quickly but calmly.
He reached the landing for the second floor and dropped. Seconds later the door burst open and a man entered the stairwell, firing down at him.
The angle was tough, and the shots went over Tony. He didn't miss when he shot back. Two more men came through the door and were dispatched before Tony resumed his climb.
Third floor. Steps behind him. He turned. Waited.
Fired.
A fresh clip, and then he went straight through the door. A shot was fired, but the shooter had assumed he'd go right and low and missed.
Tony shot him, then swung the gun.
A bullet tore through his upper arm, knocking him backward. The S&W clattered on the marble and Tony dove and rolled. It came up in his left hand and he fired.
He sucked a deep breath through his teeth, pushing himself to his feet. The bullet had missed the bone, but the shock made him a little shaky. He took a few deep breaths, thought of Charlotte and waited a few seconds for the endorphins to kick in.
One last door. He kicked it open, registered Hector Anetakis holding a weapon to a kneeling Charlotte's head, then he scanned the room.
He whirled and fired, taking down the shooter who'd come up behind him. A few steps to the right, removing himself from the open doorway, and then he aimed the gun at Anetakis's face.
"Drop your weapon," Tony ordered, barely registering the blood running down his right arm and dripping onto the carpet.
He couldn't tell if Charlotte was conscious or not. Anetakis was holding her head up by her hair and he couldn't see her eyes. Her body was covered in bruises, and there blood on her face-so much blood.
He wanted to run to her, to take her into his arms and carry her out of this nightmare. Instead, he tried to block it out-block her out-and concentrate on not getting them both killed.
"I'll shoot her," Anetakis said, and Tony was aware of the tremor in his voice.
"I'm sorry," Charlotte whispered.
No, it was the son of a bitch behind her who was about to be sorry.
Tony's breathing was fast, but still controlled. Hector Anetakis, however, was practically hyperventilating. The man's hands were also trembling and his finger was on the trigger.
One bad twitch and Charlotte was dead.
"Put the fucking gun down, Anetakis. If you don't, you're a dead man no matter what."
Tony saw the capitulation in the other man's eyes. Anetakis didn't lower his weapon, but he was already giving up. Without his checkbook and his layers of security, the man was all hat and no cattle.
"I don't want to shoot my Sofia," Anetakis said. "I just want to leave."
He didn't bother lying to the man. "Put. The gun. Down."
"Will you promise me one thing?"
The only promises Tony had in mind involved Anetakis's funeral.
"Depends on the one thing."
"Will you try to protect my mother?" Tears gathered in the Greek's eyes and spilled out onto his cheeks. "My sisters and their families, too? I don't want them to know my father was a failure. Or what I had to do to keep them from knowing."
Tony hadn't seen that coming. "We'll try."
Anetakis nodded, making gathered tears fall from his chin. "I don't want to be this man any more."
He slowly moved his gun away from Charlotte's head, and when the angle was clear, Tony fired twice. The Greek's face exploded and Tony advanced. Fired one more time.
Hector Anetakis was dead. Charlotte was still kneeling, her body mottled with bruises and blood.
Tony ripped the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her. "Do you have any abdominal injuries or broken ribs?"
"Ludka was here. He did...this."
Shit. If Ludka had been there, he was gone now. They'd either encounter him on their way out or find him later. Right now Tony just wanted out of this joint.
"Answer my question, Charlotte. Abdominal injuries or broken ribs?"
She shook her head, licked at her split lip. "Don't think so."
He pulled her to her feet, cocooned her in the blanket and bent at the waist to pull her across his shoulders in a fireman's carry. Conscious of how tall she was, he went sideways through the door, with the S&W in his left hand.
He was starting to feel the gunshot wound to his right arm, and Charlotte's weight wasn't helping. The elevator was on the ground floor when he called it. He took a few steps back and pressed close to the wall, so he was ready for the two men who stepped out and he dropped them with one shot each.
Once more on the ground floor, he made his way toward the kitchen.
A bullet hit him in the leg and he stumbled, almost dropping Charlotte.
Despite the chaps, that shot was going to leave a mark. He recovered and pushed up off his knees, scanning for the shooter.
There, behind the center island.
It took him half a damn magazine just to take out that last guy. Tile shattered and flew as they exchanged gunfire, but finally the other guy looked at the wrong time and Tony shot him.
They met no further resistance and he buckled her into the back seat of the minivan. He wanted her next to him, but it was bad enough the right side of him was soaked in blood. A battered, naked woman wrapped in a blanket sitting in the front passenger seat would attract attention.
Once he'd pulled away from the curb, he turned on his earpiece. "Call HQ."
The master number was ringing through to Marge's phone for the time being. "Tony?"
"We're both alive and out of the house, Marge."
"No way!"
He almost laughed, and wondered if they'd actually done an official office pool regarding their chances. "I can't believe it either. But it wasn't easy. You need to find us a secure hotel room and a discreet doctor."
"Did he..." Marge's words tapered off as she floundered for the right one.
"You'll be updated on our status when we know it, Marge. But you can update Anetakis's status to dead."
"Okay. I'll need five minutes on the room and the doctor."
When a voice came back on comm, it was Gallagher's. "Will she be okay?"
"Like you said, she's a tough cookie." Tony was encouraged to hear a snorting sound from the backseat. It implied she was not only still conscious, but might have survived with her sense of humor intact. "This was a big fuck up, man."
"One target's down and you two are still breathing."
"Well, hoo-fucking-rah for the home team. I'll send you pictures of her face, asshole, so you can factor that into your success ratio." Silence crackled and the raging anger drained out of him as quickly as it had struck. "Shit, that was out of line. Sorry, man."
"Hey, forget it. I zapped directions to a hotel to your handheld. You didn't break it, did you? Or lose it again?"
"For chrissake, I lost one, years ago. Let it go." Tony pulled the replacement unit from his vest pocket. "It's still ticking, and your message is coming through now."
"The doctor will be about ten minutes behind you. His info and the photo from his license are attached to that message. Marge has him on another line so we can tell him what to expect."
"Charlotte's got a shitload of bruises-all over her body. There's less blood than I first thought, and it's not all hers, but her mouth and nose were bleeding. The bastard really worked her over."
"And you?"
"I've got a bullet hole in my right arm, and I'm going to have a bruise the size of Texas on my thigh."
"Call me when you're settled and give me an update. And when you're ready I'll call Rogers and have him fire up the bird and get you home."
"I'll send Charlotte, but I'm not leaving until Konrad's dead."
"There will be another time."
"He put his hands on her, man. He hurt her, and I'm going to fucking kill him for it."
Chapter Seven
Charlotte was just starting to nod off when the van door slid open.
Tony fumbled with her seat belt, and then hefted her into his arms. It was her favorite place to be, she decided groggily.
Then she heard him suck a breath through his teeth. He'd been shot in the arm, he'd told Gallagher. And he was limping when he turned around.
She tried to tell him she'd walk, but she honestly wasn't sure if she could or not.
"I'll carry her, sir," she heard a man say. Peeking through the folds of the blanket, she saw a very concerned man wearing a tag that said Hotel Manager.
Tony held her a little tighter. "I've got her. Just get the door."
She was aware of their passage through what looked like the service entrance of a small boutique hotel, then what was definitely a service elevator. Finally, the manager unlocked a door and stepped back to allow Tony to carry her into the room.
He laid her gingerly on the sofa and peeled the blanket away from her face. There was a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead and smears of blood that might have belonged to either of them.
"I'll be right back, darlin'."
"No." She needed water...and Tony.
"I'm just going to the door. I'm not leaving the room."
She stayed cocooned in the blanket, too hot and too thirsty, and listened to him talk to the manager.
"Here's a picture of the doctor who's coming. Nobody else comes to this floor. Nobody."
"I've been apprised of...well, not everything, but enough to understand your needs. The owner and I have agreed I will stay in the hotel for the duration of your visit with us. No matter what you need or when you need it, ring for me. I'll be the only hotel personnel you come in contact with."
"Thank you," she heard Tony say. "My people will be in touch about compensating you for the inconvenience."
"Sir, your people chose this hotel for a reason. Five years ago, the owner's daughter was traveling in South America-some college tour thing where a bunch of kids go abroad together-and she and her companions were taken hostage. For ransom, we assume. Several of your coworkers brought her back, and she's now my wife. Nobody will get to you here, and we find your presence anything but inconvenient."
Charlotte let her eyes slide closed as she listened to the two men chat a little more, but then the doctor arrived and the manager left. She opened her eyes to find a vaguely familiar face peering down at her.
"Hello, Sofia."
The name panicked her and she struggled to sit up. The damn blanket kept her trapped, though, long enough for the man to gently ease her back down. "I'm Evander Savakis."
She sagged back into the cushions. "You're related to Christopher?"
"He's my brother. My being here, no questions asked, is a personal favor to him."
"Thank you."
She made a note to talk to Alex-if he was still alive, she realized with a pang of anxiety that hurt almost as bad as the bruises-about Marge.
She was as good at this as she was at accounting. Finding two wounded agents half a world away safe harbor among "friends" in five minutes or less wasn't easy. She should know, since she'd had to do it herself.
"I'm going to take care of your friend's arm, and then we'll take a look at you, okay?"
An hour later the doctor had given her his official diagnosis and left.
While she wouldn't be dancing the Zembekiko anytime soon, she would live. He also left her some pain pills she was actually going to take. She usually hated the disconnected feeling they gave her almost as much as she hated pain, but this was a lot of pain.
She hadn't been surprised to learn that, while she was a mass of bruises and agony, nothing was broken and her internal organs seemed undamaged. The Devlin Group agents knew how to inflict pain without causing lasting damage-a skill that helped keep them on the right side of the good guy/bad guy fence-and Konrad Ludka had been one of them.
There'd been a bad moment when the doctor had tried to put her in the shower to wash the blood and grime away in order to better assess her, but Tony had taken over and she'd calmed down enough to let him wash her. Now she was clean, medicated and ensconced in the suite's bedroom, listening to Tony wrap things up.
Occasionally, as he paced, she'd be rewarded with a glimpse of him through the open door. He was shirtless now, and the bandage around his upper arm contrasted sharply with his tanned skin. He was still limping, although it didn't seem to interfere with his pacing. When she thought about what he'd done and how bad it could have been, neither the bandage nor the limp seemed so bad.
"The van's here at the hotel," she heard him say to Marge. "But we got it a little messy. Tag Rogers to get it cleaned and returned. Abandon it in a market place parking area or something. They'll find it."
There was a brief silence, and when Tony spoke again, she could tell Marge had put Gallagher on. "Since Marge tagged every account and bit of ID he owns with a terrorism alert flag, he's more or less locked out of public transpo or a rental. As long as the word's gotten out about the monster reward, he'll get turned in if he tries to arrange to sneak out by boat."
More silence. "I know we can't one-hundred percent contain him. But we can keep the heat on. Keep him desperate. And unless he's running around with a bag of cash, we can keep him broke."
Charlotte wished she could hear Gallagher's side of the conversation.
She wasn't accustomed to being out of the loop, since her job made her the center of every loop. This field work crap was for the birds.
"Just keep working it on your end. We're just going to hang out and recuperate until he surfaces. Yeah, tomorrow morning. But not too early, man. I'm sleeping in."
She heard the beep when he disconnected, then she heard him check the door. He made a brief pit stop in the bathroom, then the lights went off one by one, until only the bedside lamp remained.
Tony stepped into the bedroom and laid his gun on the table next to the lamp on the right side of the bed. He was trying to be quiet, and she guessed he was assuming she was asleep. Instead she watched him as he stripped off his jeans and socks. Clad only in black boxer briefs, he very carefully lifted the covers, slid into bed next to her, and turned off the lamp.
Thankful his bandaged arm was on the outside, Charlotte started scooting toward him, and he raised his arm to allow her to snuggle against his chest. Then he kissed the top of her head.
"I thought you were asleep," he said in a low voice.
"I promised myself if I survived I'd jump you."
His chuckle rumbled through his chest and she felt it against the side of her face. "Not tonight, honey. I have a little gunshot wound."
She smiled, but it hurt her lip, so she stopped. "I knew you were out there. And I knew you'd come get me."
He squeezed her tightly, and she shifted-mindful of his bruised thigh-so she fit even more naturally against him. Tony Casavetti made a damn fine pillow.
"You know," he said, "we went over and over the plan. You made me read files and memorize maps and floor plans, and look at dozens of pictures. But I just can't seem to recall reading anything in the plans about a toilet."
She summoned enough energy to give him a playful pinch. "I knew you weren't paying attention. Throwing toilet parts out the window is standard operating procedure now. If there was an official DG Handbook, it would be in there."
"Would that handbook also have a sexual harassment clause governing exec admins jumping the agents?"
"There used to be. It took me five bottles of correction fluid to get rid of it." Her words were starting to slur as the pain meds kicked in, and she wasn't positive she was even making sense. "You know what I like about you?"
"I seem to recall you mentioning my cologne once."
She giggled like a drunk woman. "No. You liked me and I was important to you before you knew what I looked like."
"You have no idea just how important."
"When I was a little girl, people used to say `You're so beautiful, I just love you to death' and `how can you not love somebody with the face of an angel?' and I used to wonder if people would care about me if I was ugly."
"Sweetheart, you could have turned out to be that old, metal-ruler- wielding hag and I would still care about you."
She giggled again. "You're so...sweet."
Tony kissed the top of her head again. "Go to sleep, darlin'."
Charlotte fell asleep with his breath tickling her hair, and his hand stroking her back.
Food.
Charlotte woke up stiff, sore and as ravenously hungry as she'd ever been in her life.
And her pillow was gone. She could hear Tony moving around in the kitchenette area of the suite, and she smelled coffee. Either was worth getting out of bed for, but combined they were irresistible.
A fluffy white robe had been draped across the foot of the bed for her, and she slipped into it, wincing as every muscle in her body protested.
After tightening the sash, she went in search of her two favorite things- caffeine and Tony.
"Morning, darlin'," Tony said, even though his head was buried in the fridge and she thought she'd been quiet. "There are two pills and a glass of orange juice on the bar. Down the hatch."
"I want food."
"Take your meds and I'll make you an omelette."
Charlotte picked up the pills and glared at the juice. Orange juice was not coffee. "I don't want to be groggy."
"Those pills are the lightweight ones for the daytime."
She swallowed her pills and forced the orange juice down. When she slid onto one of the kitchen's bar stools, she was rewarded with a mug of coffee.
"I put extra cream in it to cool it down," he told her. "So it won't be as hard on your lip."
She watched him move around the kitchenette, breaking eggs into a bowl and whisking them like pro. A splash of milk. "This is a really nice suite Marge found for us."
"Glad you like it, because you're not leaving it for at least a week."
The coffee still stung her lip, but she drank it anyway. "A week? But Ludka-"
He stopped dropping mushrooms in the pan to hold up a hand. "No shop talk during breakfast."
After serving her omelette, he poured them each another coffee, then leaned against the bar to drink his. "I already ate," he told her.
The first bite was hot, stung her lip and was total Nirvana. "I didn't know you could cook."
"I'd starve if I didn't."
"How come you've never been married? Haven't found the right boring sedan to drive around every day?"
He raised an eyebrow. "I've been thinking about test driving a Ferrari, actually. Just waiting for her to come out of the shop."
She felt the hot flush creeping over her skin and turned her attention back to her eggs. "So what are you? An Eldorado with horns strapped to the front grille?"
He laughed and shook his head. "I'm a pickup truck, darlin'. With big muddy tires and a gun rack."
His phone chirped and he set his coffee down. "Casavetti."
Charlotte's spirits-which had just barely managed to rise out of the muck-sank again. So much for no shop talk during breakfast. She didn't want to talk about the job anymore. She didn't want to run-after people, away from people-and she didn't want Tony getting shot at. She just wanted to eat her freakin' eggs and look forward to being test driven.
"Yeah, she's right here."
She almost didn't take the phone. For God's sake, they couldn't fend for themselves for a mere twelve hours? But these were her people, and /7 came with being a part of the family.
"Rhames," she barked, and Tony laughed. She never answered the phone that way, but it amused her when the guys did. Too much TV, she always told them.
"What the hell are you doing in Greece?"
"Alex?" The tears were instantaneous and numerous. She was aware of Tony moving away, then a tissue being waved in front of her. She sniffled and mopped at her eyes. "How do you feel?"
"I feel like somebody tried to blow me up. But I can feel everything and move everything, and I've got my boy tucked up in my hospital bed with me and my wife fussing over me. If my exec admin was where she's supposed to be, I'd feel a lot better, though."
"Marge is good."
"Marge isn't you. I would never have let you go back to Greece, Charlotte."
"Well, quit napping on the job and you'll get to make those decisions."
"Aw shit. There's a nurse coming and she's got a needle the size of a steak knife in her hand. Take care of yourself. And take care of Tony."
They disconnected and she handed Tony back his phone, trying to pull herself together enough to finish her omelette. Alex being okay and a full meal would go a long way toward making this a good day. Although, yesterday hadn't exactly set a high standard.
"Are you okay?" Tony asked, and she only nodded since her mouth was full of omelette. "You and Rossi ever...take a few laps around the track?"
She almost choked, but managed to swallow the eggs and wash it down with a mouthful of coffee. "That would be your business how, exactly?"
"I'd rather just know straight out than to always wonder if he'd had you first."
A lot of things tumbled through her head as she considered how she should feel. Offended by the too-personal question? Thrilled he cared enough to be jealous? But there was something in his eyes and the way he said always wonder if he'd had you first that made her wonder if Tony was looking further down the track than a quick test drive.
"One, I've never had an intimate relationship with anybody in the Group. Two, I'd never have done that to Grace, even before they knew they were serious. And three, Alex and I just never went there."
"You do love him, though." It wasn't an accusation, though. Just a statement of fact.
"I do love Alex Rossi. I'd throw myself in front of the bus for him. But it was never sexual. He saw something in me. Something I knew I had, but dismissed as not being good enough. But it was good enough for him and he believed in me and respected me. He told me one day that my mind was more valuable than my body, and then he helped me prove it to myself.
"I had convinced myself trading my body for the very finest things in life was where I wanted to be. But it wasn't, and I was afraid to admit it until Alex came along. The day he told me he'd pay me for my mind was the last day I ever used my body except for my own pleasure."
"You threw yourself into Anetakis's hands knowing the possibilities."
"I had no intention of having sex with him and every intention of killing him if he tried. The important thing is my self-respect and my choice. I have those things because Alex Rossi gave me a kick in the ass.
So yes, until now he's been the most important man in my life."
Their eyes met and Tony smiled. "Until now?"
She waved a forkful of egg, mushrooms and cheddar in his direction.
"The only thing Alex can cook is a salad."
He laughed and started filling the sink with soapy water. Charlotte could only watch, speechless. Who knew Tony Casavetti washed dishes?
"That's how I ended up in the Group, too, you know," he said. "Rossi saw something in me I'd given up on anybody else ever seeing."
She knew the factual background, of course. Carmen Olivera had crossed paths with a guy she'd known back in Texas, and she remembered him having some pretty useful skills. He'd done a little freelance work for the Group, and then a job with Rossi. He'd come out of that job one of the gang. Emotion generally didn't make it into reports, though.
"So you know?" she asked him. "You understand what Alex means to me?"
"Yup." He took her empty plate away. "Now, you go get comfy on the couch. As soon as I'm done here, we're going to watch a couple of movies I sent out for."
How decadent. She could get used to this. "What are we watching?"
"The Cowboy Way and Pretty Woman."
She laughed at his choices, then winced as her lip tried to split again.
Being curled up on the couch with a couple of movies sounded like a damn fine way to spend the day.
And when Tony was done being domestic and nudged her to the other end of the couch so he could hold her with his good arm, she thought it might just be the best day she'd ever had.
Konrad Ludka sat in the deepest shadows of the bar, nursing a beer and a burning hatred.
That fucking Casavetti and his blonde whore had offed Anetakis before he could collect on his blood money. And now the assholes had frozen him out of his own life.
He needed cash, and to get it he needed a bargaining chip. Devlin-or Rossi or whoever the fuck he was-was loaded, and Ludka intended to get himself some of the wealth.
He hadn't been a poor man before he approached Hector Anetakis.
The Devlin Group paid well above the earning curve. But he'd wanted more. He was tired of dealing with arms dealers and other scum. He wanted to live like a king and he decided to do it in Greece. Working with Jones had opened the door. He'd walked through it and offered Anetakis the deal of a lifetime.
Now it was all gone. He knocked back another gulp of the bitter, cheap beer and swiped his hand across the back of his mouth. He knew where they were holed up. He didn't get to work with the Devlin Group by being an inept moron.
It was time to make a plan and execute it. And the first thing he needed to do was show up on their radar. They'd come for him. And when they did he'd get his payback. One way or another.
Chapter Eight
After five days into their recuperation, the cabin fever was killing Tony. His arm still ached, but the limp was gone. He was tired of watching movies, had already cleaned his gun, and was ready to move on to the rest of his to-do list.
Make love to Charlotte Rhames.
Kill Konrad Ludka.
Make love to Charlotte again.
He'd prefer to do them in that order, but at this point he'd settle for anyway he could get them.
"Checkmate."
"Shit."
"You're not paying attention, Tony."
"I am paying attention. I just suck at chess. I was always better at bloody knuckles."
"I'm not playing bloody knuckles with you. And I think we should fire up the jet and go home. As nice as it is, I'm as sick of this hotel room as you are."
Tony scrubbed his face with his hands. It was tempting. He could drop Charlotte off in New York and be on his ranch and saddled up in less than twenty-four hours. Konrad Ludka as a problem belonged to the entire Group, not just to him.
Maybe he could even talk Charlotte into joining him in Texas. She probably hadn't ever ridden a horse-or maybe she'd played with some rich guy's polo ponies-but he'd like to take her around his ranch. He smiled at the cheesy visual he got of Charlotte sitting in front of him on horseback, watching the sun set over the horizon.
He looked across the coffee table at her. Most of the bruises had faded into multicolored blotches. The fingerprints had faded to hues of purple and yellow and, strangely enough, looked like a necklace of flowers from a distance. The swelling in her face was mostly gone, although her lip was still a little puffy. The sauciness was back in her eyes.
But he couldn't forget how he'd found her-bruised and bleeding, kneeling at Anetakis's feet with a gun to her head. The Greek had held the pistol, but it was Konrad Ludka who'd put her there in the first place.
And he had to pay.
"I'll call Rogers," he said after a few minutes. Charlotte's face lit up and started packing the chess pieces away. "He'll get you back to New York and I'll make sure there's a car to take you to the hospital to see Rossi."
She stopped, the bishop piece clutched in her hand. "You can drive me to the hospital."
"I'm not going back yet."
"Yes, you are."
He stood and went to the bar for a bottle of water. Mostly he wanted to be a more distant target should she throw that marble bishop at him.
"Don't pull the boss card with me, Charlotte. I did it your way and look what happened. Now we'll do it my way."
"That wasn't my way. It was a solid plan developed by Group personnel. The variables-"
"Screw the variables. We went in half-cocked with a half-baked plan and you know it. We should have waited until the Group was solid-until Rossi was back on his feet and the dead were buried and everybody was calmed down. Then we should have hunted him down. Both of them. Of course Anetakis knew you were lying. He had a freakin' DG agent on his payroll."
"We didn't expect Ludka to actually be in the house. Double- crossings are usually handled at arm's length."
"It was stupid to assume he didn't know."
"Are you picking a fight with me because you're really pissed or because you're bored?" she demanded.
"Both. Doesn't change the fact that there's no reason you can't return to New York."
"How about because I don't want to?"
Had any woman ever been more of a pain in the ass than Charlotte Rhames? "I can't go after Konrad Ludka with you here."
"And I can't get on a plane and leave you behind."
This was exactly why he preferred working alone and had never been married. Partners and women wouldn't just do what they were told. And Charlotte was both.
"I'll stay in this suite," she said, walking toward him. "I'm not an idiot, Tony. I know if you're going in hot to take him down, I'm a distraction you can't afford. I'm not trained for that. But I'm not leaving Greece without you, and I want to be on comm with you the whole time."
He was weakening and he hated himself for it. What he should do was knock her out and put her ass on the Bombardier. They'd be in the air before she could do a damn thing about it. But she'd hate him for it, and he couldn't stand the thought of that.
"You'll stay in this room?" She nodded. "And you won't interfere?"
"I won't interfere...boss."
He grinned and grabbed the bathrobe sash, pulling her close. "I like the sound of that."
"Don't get too used to it."
He kissed the unmarred side of her mouth. He'd been kissing her a lot the last few days. Stroking her hair. Rubbing her back. It was getting harder and harder to back down every time he touched her.
Tony wanted to spend hours exploring her. Each new thing he discovered only made him want more. She didn't like her ears touched, but she would stretch her chin up like a cat to have her throat rubbed.
Her palms were ticklish, but her feet weren't. She loved to run her fingers through his hair, lightly grazing his scalp with her nails. He was pretty fond of that one himself.
Now he deepened the kiss, running his tongue across her lip, letting it dance across hers. She arched her back, pressing her body against his.
"You're driving me crazy, darlin'."
"Maybe we should do something about that."
Tony's phone chirped and he let loose a string of expletives. It took every bit of his willpower not to throw the damn thing on the ground and stomp the shit out of it. "Casavetti."
Charlotte slid out of his grip as Gallagher started talking. "Marge got a hit on the reward line. He's hired a small charter outfit to fly him into Berlin. Flight's arranged for three hours from now. I sent the location to your handheld."
Tony dug the thing out from under a pile of DVD cases. "Confirmed."
"You got a plan, dude?"
"More or less."
Tony could almost hear the man grinding his teeth. "This ain't gonna be a walk in the park, Casavetti. He was one of us."
"My plan is to be on the plane before him. He boards, I shoot him, you pay the reward to the charter company. No conversation, no gentlemanly trading of punches. Just one dead son of a bitch. And before you ask-or Rossi asks-Charlotte refuses to get on the jet. But she's promised to stay locked down in this room."
"We'd rather she be in the air."
Tony sighed. "This is like dating a girl with two heavily-armed and deadly big brothers, you know that?"
"So you're dating now?"
Laughing, Tony looked at Charlotte across the room. She was leaning against the bedroom door jamb, fiddling with the knot of her bathrobe's sash. "Something like that."
"If I wasn't her heavily-armed and deadly big brother, I'd think you're one lucky asshole."
"You'd be right." He watched her untie the sash and let the robe slip down her shoulders. "I'll call you back. My girl's waiting to kiss me goodbye."
Charlotte backed into the bedroom, giving him a come-hither look.
She was definitely going to kiss him, and a whole lot more. When he walked out that door, she was going to make sure he had a powerful incentive to come back to her.
My girl. The words had tripped so easily off Tony's tongue, but they'd rocked her world. She liked being his girl, and she liked that he wanted Gallagher to know it, too.
He cupped the back of her head as he lowered her to the bed. His kisses were sweetly gentle, but she could feel the effort of his restraint in his back's trembling. She threaded her fingers through his thick hair, pulling his face closer. Her kiss was more aggressive, and she could feel the hunger rising in him.
"You have too many clothes on," she murmured against his lips.
It took him less than a minute to remedy that, even with one arm bandaged. Her bathrobe was wide open and she sighed with pleasure when he settled his body gingerly over hers.
"I don't want to crush you," he said when she wrapped her legs around his hips, urging him even closer. "You're still pretty bruised up."
"I'm fine, Tony. I've been waiting for this a long time, and I don't want you to hold back."
He blazed a trail of hot kisses across her breasts. "You haven't been waiting all that long, darlin'."
"Years," she whispered. "You had no idea I was secretly lusting after you while typing out your reports, did you?"
The trail of kisses took a turn in a southerly direction. "You should have told me. We could have had comm sex."
Her giggle became a moan and she arched her back. "I don't think you can do that over the comm."
"Not without disinfecting it first."
He kissed his way back to her breasts, lingered there a moment, then continued up her neck.
"Do you know how long I've wanted to do this?" he whispered against her mouth.
"I'm pretty sure the naughty schoolgirl outfit got your attention."
"I admit that gave me a hankering to bend you over that snazzy car of yours." He raised his head and looked down into her eyes. His smile was as sweet and warm as his kisses. "But I've wanted to make love to you- to take my time loving you-since the flight over here, when you took my hand and smiled that sweet, sleepy smile up at me."
"Oh, you are a charmer, Tony Casavetti," she teased, but his words lit a fire in her almost as hot as the one his touch had stoked.
There was a crinkle of plastic-God only knew what the manager must think of them-and then he finally slid his cock into her. Charlotte moaned at the pure deliciousness that was Tony. She ran her hands over his back, loving the feel of his muscles flexing as he thrust.
He propped his upper body on his elbows and watched her as he slowed, teasing her as his hips made slow, lazy circles. "You are so beautiful, darlin'."
"You make me feel beautiful," she whispered.
Tony ran his finger over her bottom lip. "I love the way you catch the corner of your lip with your eyetooth when you're thinking hard about something."
He ran his finger down over her chin and she shivered, tilting her head back so he could stroke her neck. "And I love the way you wrinkle your nose when I make you drink your orange juice. And I love your laugh. You have the best laugh."
Charlotte slid her hand behind his head and pulled him down for another kiss as her hips arched, urging him to quicken the pace. "Please, Tony..."
He plunged his fingers into her hair, tugging slightly as he cupped her head in his hands. His thrusts deepened, quickened, and he looked into her eyes. She caressed his face and he caught her finger with his lips, drawing it in. Sucking gently.
Her body trembled and he rocked his hips against her. Faster.
Harder. "I want to watch you come, darlin'."
She came, and he kissed her, absorbing her cries with his mouth as the tremors shook her body. And when he followed her over the edge, he said her name in a low, husky voice that made her body yearn for him all over again.
Tony collapsed over her, though he supported most of his weight on his arms, and pressed a kiss to her mouth. "I've thought a lot about how good sex would be between us, and it was even better than I imagined it would be."
Charlotte sighed, perfectly content to stay just as they were.
"Mmmm...I totally agree."
She wanted to curl up against him now and fall asleep while the afterglow still burned. She wanted to feel his naked flesh against hers, warming her, as she slept.
But he had to go soon. Before he pulled away, heading for the shower, she kissed him again. "We're going to do that again when you get back, right?"
"I hope like hell we are," he said, stroking her cheek. Then he groaned and rolled off the bed. "If I don't get up now, I'll never leave you.
And I've got work to do."
"You'll be careful, right?" She knew it seemed like a pretty straightforward plan, but no plan was bulletproof.
She didn't get any answer. He'd already turned on the shower and either hadn't heard her, or was pretending he hadn't. Either way, she didn't feel good about his leaving.
Konrad Ludka watched Tony Casavetti pull up to the front of the charter airline from the tool shed he'd chosen for its location close to the office.
He'd chosen this particular company to approach because he'd done business with them before, and he was banking on the Anetakis name still having some juice. He'd scraped together enough cash to get their attention, with the promise of a major payoff when the job was done.
They were expecting more cash. That wasn't exactly what Ludka had in mind for them.
Casavetti looked around, but Ludka knew he couldn't be seen. He was disappointed the pretty blonde whore hadn't come with him, but he only really needed one of them for his plan to work. And when it worked, he'd have the money and the leverage he needed to disappear.
He let one minute pass, and then he crept from the shed. The two men in the office knew exactly what to say and do to buy him the time he needed. After keeping Casavetti talking for five minutes, they'd direct him on where he should park his car.
The car Konrad slid under with the ease of years of practice. The little black box was triggered by remote, so he didn't need to waste time on worrying about placement or wiring. He stuck it up inside the rear driver's side wheel well. He wanted incapacitation, but not death.
A dead agent wasn't worth shit.
Ludka was back in the shed and had the remote armed a full minute before he heard the car start.
Tony backed the sedan away from the office and swung it around. He whistled an old cowboy song as he drove.
He was going to make quick work of this job. Get on the plane. Wait.
Shoot the son of a bitch and leave.
He'd go home to Charlotte. Make love to her again before they left for the States. Maybe he'd make love to her on the plane. Then in New York.
Then he'd convince her to go home with him to Texas, where he'd make love to her some more. That was a plan he wasn't going to mind executing.
For now he made do with calling her up on comm. "Hey, darlin'."
"How's it going?"
"Checked in with the pilots. Everything's still on schedule, and there's no sign of him yet. I'm just moving the car and then I'll board the plane and wait."
"It won't be long." She sounded pleased, and he hoped she was as eager for him to come home as he was to go.
"No, but waiting still sucks. Maybe once I'm in position we could have comm sex while I-shit!"
The wheel jerked out of his hand as all the glass in the car exploded.
He was aware of being tilted-the car was midair. Rolling.
"Tony?"
It came down on its roof and Tony fell hard, smashing his head. The car was sliding, sparks shooting out as the tarmac shredded the roof.
"Tony, what the hell is going on?"
"Ambush," he said calmly. He drew the S&W. Waited as the car came to a stop.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Be quiet."
He listened, expecting shouts, somebody approaching. He heard nothing. If the pilots in the office hadn't come to investigate, they'd known the car was going to blow.
He'd been set up.
A vehicle was approaching from the east side. Tony considered his options, then managed to haul himself through the smashed window on the west side. With the upside-down rental between him and the approaching vehicle, he risked a look.
Ludka, driving a generic-looking minivan, was bearing down on him.
Tony aimed in on him, then had to duck when Ludka reached his arm out his open window and sprayed the rental with bullets.
Tony held the S&W over the car and fired a few rounds. If he could get Ludka out of the van, he had a chance.
He was still thinking that when the secondary device blew.
Chapter Nine
"You need to stand your ass down, Charlotte Rhames."
It wasn't Gallagher, or even Alex, who hissed into her earpiece. It was Grace Nolan Rossi, and she sounded pissed as hell.
Good. If she wanted a long distance catfight, she'd come to the right place. Charlotte had already spent ten long, wasted minutes arguing with Marge. "I will not stand down. And I can't believe I'm hearing it from you, of all people."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"You didn't stand down when they took Danny, did you? You sure as hell didn't stand down when it was time to go in and extract him. And you didn't exactly stand down when Angelo Contadino was holding a gun on Alex, did you?"
"Everything I did was within the scope of my skills and my experience," Grace argued. "There's not an agent here who doesn't want you on comm when the shit hits the fan, Charlotte. You're the best. But we don't want you picking up a gun and going through the door with us."
"None of you are here to go through this door. And what the hell are you doing on comm, anyway? You're retired."
"Yeah, bite me. I got a sitter. Gallagher's ready to go, and Donovan's on his way in."
"It'll be too late."
"You're going to get killed and Tony won't be any better off for it."
Charlotte scrawled the last item on the scrap of paper she was working on. "You'd do it all over again for Danny and Alex. Even if you shouldn't."
"Danny's my son. I love Alex."
"And I'm going after Tony." Because she loved him, dammit, and she hadn't told him yet.
"It's not...oh shit." Grace was quiet for a few seconds. "Is it a mutual thing?"
"I don't know," Charlotte answered. "And I'm never going to if he dies."
She heard Grace talking to somebody away from the microphone and she forced herself to be patient. On the one hand, it would be really nice to do this with the team's support. On the other, it didn't matter. She was going after Tony.
The explosion, the gunfire, Tony's shouts. The horrific cacophony of sound was still echoing through her ears. The only dim, little flicker of light in the darkness was hearing him struggle before his comm went down. Ludka had the skills and the opportunity to kill him outright, and he hadn't. Tony still had a chance.
"You win, Charlotte," Grace said into her earpiece. "Konrad Ludka just phoned in a request for fifty million dollars. In exchange, we get Tony Casavetti back."
"Ransom?" That just didn't make any sense. Taking Tony made sense in the context of a good offense being the best defense. Or even in some testosterone-laden grudge thing. But money?
"The thing is," Grace continued, "we traced back the call. Ludka and the GPS in Tony's phone and his handheld say they're in one place. But the secondary GPS you made Tony wear show him somewhere else."
Scenarios ran through her head at lightning speed. "So Ludka knew those could be traced, obviously. Standard procedure. He didn't know about the one tucked under his bandage, though. So Tony's contained somewhere else, maybe under guard or maybe just restrained."
"That's our guess."
Charlotte took a deep breath. Then she crumpled the list she'd made and started a new one. "New plan."
"What the hell are you thinking?" Grace demanded. Charlotte told her, and she relayed the information to the others. "Gallagher wants me to point out that it didn't work out so well the first time."
"This time I'm willing to risk it all."
The other woman sighed. "We've been in contact with Christopher Savakis, and he's assembling a team-with Rogers, so we can't send him with you-to hit Ludka's current location. Apparently, he's wanted for the murder of Hector Anetakis. Marge is handling them. Once you're ready, I'll be with you, Charlotte."
"Thank you, Grace." She disconnected, then picked up the in-house phone and rang for the manager.
"I have a list of things I need you to get, and I need it yesterday."
Charlotte drove the rental car into a small, depressed village and found the ramshackle boathouse the GPS tracker led them to. She pulled up in front of it and left the engine running.
Only one face peered out at her through a grimy, distorted window, and Charlotte took a deep, steadying breath. Her best hope was that Ludka had hired some unemployed local guy to guard the prisoner for a few bucks and a beer. Worst case, he'd hooked up with some of Anetakis's old crew.
Charlotte swung her legs around so they were the first part of her to exit the car. She wore black, four-inch heels and a skirt that wasn't much longer, so she knew any heterosexual male within view was drooling right about now.
Grace Nolan had her skills. Charlotte had her own.
The black jacket of her suit was cut low in a sweetheart neckline, showing off a generous helping of cleavage and just a hint of black lace.
She'd skipped the wig, but she'd gone through what seemed like pounds of make-up to cover the bruises. She might not look quite like a million bucks, but she knew she hit the high six figures.
She closed her door and started walking. The boathouse door opened a crack and the face peered out, as well as the barrel of a revolver. "Who are you?"
This guy neither looked nor sounded like a seasoned criminal. He still had a gun, though. "I represent the people the man who's paying you is trying to...barter with. I'm here to inspect the property and ascertain the condition before financial terms are settled."
His mouth worked like a fish's as he tried to make sense of her words. She leaned close, distracting him with the cleavage. "I'm here to make sure the man being held for ransom is still alive."
"Okay. Just you. And I frisk you."
She'd counted on being frisked. Looking the way she did, it was almost a given. She'd made the gun obvious. Between finding that and wanting to give extra attention to frisking the best parts of the female anatomy, he missed the thin, folding blade tucked under the waistband of her skirt.
When he actually stepped aside and let her pass, Charlotte had to let her eyes adjust to the dim lighting. There didn't seem to be any other guards in the building.
She finally spotted Tony sitting in one corner, and it killed her to hide her reaction.
He was bound to a post and a disgusting rag was tied into his mouth as a makeshift gag. Dried blood crusted his nose, his lips, his scalp. His eyes were both blackened, indicating his nose had probably been broken.
His breathing was fairly smooth, but his chest caught at the end of each inhale, as if his ribs hurt. Mostly he looked...weak. Depleted. Defeated.
"He needs food and water and a doctor," she told their captor, as if she had every right in the world to make demands. "We're not going to pay your boss if he dies."
He looked her up and down, and she felt the chill crawl over her body, tracking his gaze. If he weren't holding a gun, she'd drive his balls up into his throat.
"We talk about what I need," he said in an oily voice that left absolutely no doubt as to what that something was.
So she hadn't put it all behind her after all. A decade of working her ass off for success, money, power, respect-self-respect-and she was right back where she'd started. She wanted something, there was a price, and her body was the currency.
She'd walked in here knowing she only had one decent card and if she couldn't bluff, she'd have to play it.
"What's your name?" she asked, letting her voice fall into the husky tone Alex called her phone-sex voice. Tony's body jerked against the pole.
"Petros."
"Well, Petros, why don't you tell me what it is you need?"
He licked his lips, then scratched at his temple with the barrel of the gun. Another schmuck who watched too much television. No doubt the bad guys thought it looked cool, but it was also a good way to shoot one's self in the head. Too bad reality didn't smack Petros upside the brain matter.
While part of the plan had been making sure the guy was overcome with lust, it also made it so he wasn't taking his eyes off her. At this point she had to accept it was unlikely she'd be able to get to her knife.
"I fuck you, he get water."
"Water alone isn't even worth a blowjob, pal." Never, ever take the first offer on the table. She propped one heel on a paint can, drawing his eyes to over three and a half feet of prime feminine leg. "A full meal. At least one full gallon of water. A doctor."
Tony was straining against his bonds now, shaking his head furiously and growling into the filthy gag. She knew what he was trying to tell her. Don't do it, Charlotte. Not worth it, Charlotte. Once upon a very long time ago she'd screwed a guy for a plane ticket to Paris. He thought she couldn't take the ninety seconds it would take this filthy pig to get off in exchange for his life?
Petros was hesitating, and she figured it was the doctor holding him up. He was afraid to bring in anybody from the outside. She sighed, exaggerating the thrust of her breasts, arching her back and causing her skirt to creep just a little further up her thigh.
"There is a nurse in town. Very good. She bring food and water and look at him."
"Fine."
He pushed her up against an old work table and bent her backwards over it. "Open your shirt."
With steady fingers, she unbuttoned the suit coat. Then she unhooked her bra, blocking out the disgusting growling sound he made.
Impatient, he pushed her hand away and grabbed her breast.
She turned her head and her gaze met Tony's. There were tears in his eyes, but he didn't look away.
He was lost to her now. Charlotte knew he wouldn't be able to move past this, no matter how much he might want to. He wouldn't be able to accept what she'd done for him, and their future was over before it even began.
"I love you," she mouthed to him, just so he'd know.
Tony closed his eyes and the tears spilled over onto his cheeks. Then he opened them and started fighting again, struggling against the ropes.
His words were absorbed by the rag, but his fury didn't need words.
Petros pinched her and she turned away from Tony. She reached deep down inside herself, searching for the skills that had served her so well in the past-the ability to disassociate herself from what her body was doing and what was being done to it. The body that had been used and abused in a barter system as old as time had known a lover's touch now, and it wasn't going to let her get away with this.
Her bag of tricks was empty. She couldn't hear the music-couldn't imagine herself on a dance floor, her body moving in a rhythm all its own. She tried to imagine Tony's hands touching her breasts, but it was impossible with him struggling so nearby. His mad rantings into the gag had subsided into what sounded like ragged sobs and Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut lest her own tears try to escape.
Several more excruciating minutes passed before Petros grew bored with pinching her nipples and turned his attention lower. Even as she fought the gorge rising up in her throat, relief came. It was going to be over very, very soon. Perhaps even sooner than Petros thought. She'd learned a few new positions since leaving her old way of life behind.
He was using one hand to fondle his pathetic little dick, and Charlotte almost smiled. In his hurried anxiety to score with no doubt the hottest woman he'd ever had, he was going to need his other hand to steady himself while he tried to find the right spot. Then it would be only a matter of seconds before it was all over.
"Spread your legs," Petros ordered, and she felt the burn in the back of her throat again. When she'd joined the Devlin Group and discovered you didn't gain respect flat on your back, she'd sworn to herself she'd never again take that command from a man.
But now she did, extending her legs into a wide vee. She didn't bend her knees or hook her heels on the edge of the table. She simply opened them straight out.
Petros started panting, then closed in on her. Charlotte took a deep breath. Waiting. Waiting.
He took himself in one hand, then rested the other on the inside of her thigh to steady himself. There was no cold touch of metal.
In the blink of an eye, she moved. Charlotte scissored her legs, her left one trapping his back while her right came across his chest. She caught under his chin with the inside bend of her knees. With a sudden force that rocked her body off the table she levered them-pulled with the left, pushed hard with the right-until snap. She felt the pop of Petros's spine. Maybe his neck, maybe his back. She really didn't give a shit.
She released her legs and he flopped to the floor, unmoving.
It was a few minutes before she trusted herself to stand, and she refastened her clothing and pulled her skirt down. Then she walked around Petros's body, working the blade out of her waistband. Rather than take the time to sort through the knots, she cut the ropes restraining Tony. When she pulled the gag from his mouth, he said nothing.
She had to kick off the heels and use every bit of her strength to help him to his feet. Even then he could barely walk, and together they staggered to the car. She helped him lower himself into the passenger's seat and then grabbed her shoes.
She put the rental car in gear and sped out of the village, eager to put it as far behind her as possible. When it no longer appeared in her rear view mirror, she reached into the backseat and grabbed a bottle of water.
She pulled the top off and held it out to Tony. But he only closed his eyes and said nothing.
Chapter Ten
"You guys are starting to make a habit of this," Doctor Savakis said as he packed up his medical gear.
"This is the last time," Tony told him. "We're leaving the country very shortly."
It hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe. Hell, it even hurt to think. And physical pain wasn't the half of it. The broken nose, bruised ribs, split lip, reaggravated gunshot wound and a cheekbone that may or may not be fractured he could live with.
Charlotte...that was a pain he couldn't live with.
"Good luck to you both," the doctor said before slipping out the door.
He left a vacuum of silence behind him. Charlotte sat in the armchair, her heavily made-up eyes red and her crimson lips pressed together.
He didn't know what to say to her.
He didn't know what to do.
"I'm going to take a shower before we leave," Charlotte said. She stood and started for the bedroom.
"What if you hadn't been able to break his neck, Charlotte?" Shit. He hadn't meant to just yell it out like that. But now he couldn't stop it.
"What if he'd rolled you over or held your ankles? What if he hadn't put the fucking gun down?"
"Then I would have let him finish. Then I'd have waited while he got the food and the water and called for the nurse, and thought of another way to get us out. Then I would have taken a long, hot shower and put it behind me."
"Just like that, huh?"
"Yeah, just like that. If that bastard had made it so I couldn't kill him and he got his nasty self inside of me, it still would have been worth it.
Even though you don't want me now, I would have let him do it over and over and over again if it meant you could live. Because I love you, Tony"
"No," he said, and his voice cracked as the damn tears started coming again. "Don't tell me you did this because you love me. I'm not worth this, Charlotte."
"You are to me."
"How could you do it? After everything you told me about self-respect and putting your past behind you, how could you do that to yourself?"
"You mean how could I do this to you, because I can live with what I did today."
"I can't."
She gave him a sad little smile. "I know, Tony."
He waited until he heard the shower before he let the sobs out, holding his bruised ribs while he cried.
Charlotte let her tears mingle with the soap washing down the drain.
She'd run out of hot water soon, but for now she imagined the steam opening her pores and washing Petros away.
She heard the door open, and then the shower curtain opened. Tony had wiped his face, but she couldn't look at his puffy, red-rimmed eyes.
"I don't want to lose you, Charlotte."
"But you can't accept the price I'm willing to pay for your life."
"I don't know."
He looked lost, and Charlotte wanted to pull him into her embrace.
But she didn't. Not only because his bandages would get wet in the shower, but because it would be so much harder to let him go.
"I felt so fucking helpless, Charlotte. I felt weak and worthless and there was not a fucking thing I could do to stop you. To stop him."
"You are not worthless," she snapped. "You're not worthless to me, Tony Casavetti, and that's the point you're missing. I'm not suddenly some worthless whore again. I haven't sacrificed everything I worked to become because it was my choice. My choice. And if I had the strength to make that choice, you need to have the strength to accept it."
The water started running cold and she turned the faucet off. She snatched her robe from the hook and slipped it on without drying off.
Tony put out his hand to touch her, then drew it back. "I'm afraid I'll never get it out of my mind. I'm afraid I'll see it every time I touch you.
And I'm afraid remembering how helpless I was and how terrified I was for you will swallow me up."
Her phone started ringing and she moved past him. "I can't make it better for you, Tony. You'll either accept it-and me-or you won't."
It was Gallagher on the other end, and Charlotte was tempted to let her voice mail pick it up. She'd already been given hell by Grace for removing her earpiece before going into the boathouse.
"He slipped out of the net," Gallagher said abruptly. "He's still got Tony's phone and before he shut it off, the GPS said he was heading for the bird, in a hurry."
"Talk to Tony," she said, tossing the phone to him.
She pulled on some clothes and then moved around the suite, packing their vital gear into one suitcase and one carry-on bag. She didn't want Tony to have to carry anything.
They were in her rental car in just over five minutes, then speeding toward the airport. She could tell Tony wanted to be driving, but even he had to admit his ribs weren't up to it.
"They gave Rogers a heads-up, right?" she asked. "And the airport security?"
"Yeah. He won't get on board." He synched his own earpiece with her phone and called Gallagher back. "Do we have any idea what he's driving? A red compact car. Well, that's pretty fucking helpful."
Charlotte tuned him out, concentrating on weaving through traffic.
They were getting close to the airport when she saw it in the rear view mirror. Though she was driving a little too fast, threading her way through the traffic, there was a red car coming up behind them, going faster.
"Tony," she said, "seven o'clock."
He turned and swore. "Slow down a little. Blend and let him go by."
She did as he said, concentrating on not causing an accident and not losing track of the red car. She tried not to concentrate on Tony, who was double-checking the back-up S&W he'd pulled from his suitcase earlier.
He wasn't in any shape to be in a gun fight.
"He's coming," she said. She took her phone and held it to her left ear, using her hand to somewhat hide her face without looking obvious.
Tony pulled the lever on the passenger seat and laid it back flat. The change in his position must have been hard on his ribs because he made a breathy, grunting sound, but he was effectively out of sight of the smaller car.
She held her breath as the red car pulled up alongside them, then slowly let it out as he went by without recognizing her.
"Don't be too aggressive, but don't lose him," Tony instructed from his horizontal position to her right.
"I drive a kick-ass Mustang in New York City, sweetheart. I've got this covered."
And she did. She kept him in sight, but never crowded him, and managed to blend in with the other bland sedans surrounding hers. The airport was coming up fast, though, and she was starting to worry.
"What, exactly, is the plan here?" she asked.
"There isn't one beyond me shooting him before he shoots me."
She laughed. "Of course. I should have known it would be that simple. It's only an airport teeming with thousands of people, so you should have no trouble sneaking up on him and blowing him away."
"Well, I'm not exactly inconspicuous right now, what with my face all busted up. And the gun rarely goes unnoticed. So I guess the plan is to hope he parks somewhere reasonably quiet. Hell, maybe we can drive by and shoot him and I won't even have to get out of the car."
They followed Konrad Ludka right up to the main entrance of the airport and watched him park and get out.
"Think of a Plan B," Tony said, raising his seat back to its upright position with more than a little effort. "Pretty damn quick."
"You know, if all the Devlin Group jobs went as smoothly as ours has, we'd all work at McDonald's."
She slowed to a crawl and they watched airport personnel yell at Ludka, waving their hands at the no parking signs. He just kept walking-clearly a man on a mission.
"Let me out," Tony ordered.
"No. I'm not-"
He opened the door and jumped out, slamming the door behind him.
"Well, isn't that just fucking great?" she muttered as an airport security officer waved at her, telling her to move it along.
She couldn't just ditch the car the way Ludka had. They still had gear in the backseat she couldn't leave behind. She took a few precious seconds to resync her own earpiece back to her phone, then she called in.
"What the hell's going on over there?" Gallagher yelled. "And why do you two keep going off comm, dammit?"
"You suck at my job, just so you know. You're supposed to be the calm voice of reason."
"Fuck that. Where's Tony?"
"He jumped out of a moving vehicle and took off into the airport after Ludka, but he probably won't catch him since he can barely even stand up straight."
"Crazy bastard. And what are you doing?"
"Looking for a parking spot."
"Of course you are," he shouted. "Because the only thing worse than Tony getting whacked in an airport would be getting a fucking parking ticket!"
The sounds of a scuffle came over the line, and then Marge was there, thank God. "Sorry, Charlotte. I'm old and slow and he keeps beating me to the headset. What do you need?"
"Tell Rogers Ludka is heading his way. Tony's behind him, but he might not catch up to him before he gets there."
"I, umm...put out an official-looking bulletin about a possible plot to hijack corporate business jets from three key airports-yours being one, of course-and Rogers says they've got the Bombardier and a few others locked down pretty tight."
"Good thinking. Make sure the Greek authorities know the guy with the scary beat-up face and ratty leather jacket who's running around holding his ribs with one hand and a gun in the other is the good guy, okay?"
"You know," Marge said, "I used to think you guys had the coolest jobs. Now that I've been on the inside, so to speak, I think you're all just freakin' crazy."
"Absolutely. Now, pull up a floor plan of this damn place, would you?"
Tony gritted his teeth and moved through the airport, trying not to lose sight of Konrad Ludka. He was also trying not to attract attention, but it wasn't easy when you looked like a face double for the final scenes of a Rocky movie.
The way he saw it, there was good news and bad news. Good-he was able to keep Ludka in his line of sight at almost all times. Bad-there were far too many people around for him to risk shooting him. Good- Ludka wasn't looking around or paying too much attention to what was around him, namely Tony. Bad-he was clearly moving toward an objective, and Tony knew that objective was the Bombardier.
If Ludka got there first and managed to get the drop on Rogers- which he might very well do, since Rogers wasn't really a field agent-it would be a simple matter for Ludka to put a gun to his head and have a private ride to pretty much anywhere he wanted to go.
Or he might just find a good hiding place and wait for Tony and Charlotte to show up, shoot them and not even give the plane a second look.
The most likely scenario, as far as he was concerned, was Ludka reaching into his little bag of favorite tricks and planting some kind of explosive device somewhere on the plane. If not for Tony's own phone having been forgotten for a while in Ludka's pocket, he could have come and gone without them even knowing about it.
Tony was starting to tire, and he cursed himself for getting out of the car. He'd only done it for one reason-to keep both Charlotte and the Bombardier out of the equation.
They were getting close to the exit to the private hangars-too close- and Tony's hand tightened around the S&W. Assuming Ludka didn't look around and spot him before then, Tony was going to take the shot as soon as they cleared the tarmac.
Suddenly, a luggage cart came from nowhere, being pushed by a tall woman in a baggy coat and floppy hat. She wasn't paying attention to where she was going and crashed into Ludka, knocking him off his feet.
Tony surged forward, his gun clearing his holster.
"Oh my goodness," declared the worst Southern American accent he'd ever heard. "Are you all right? I declare I wasn't watching where I was going."
Ludka was scrambling to his feet, but Tony's wayward Miss Scarlet tried to help him up and ended up kneeing him in the balls.
"Oh my! I do reckon I'm just making it worse."
The good news was Ludka was down. The bad news was that Charlotte had managed to make a spectacle of the situation and he had an audience.
"Let me help, sir," Tony said loudly. He bent over and jammed the S&W against the man's kidney. "Get up and let me help you walk to a quiet place."
"Screw you," the red-faced Ludka hissed. "You won't shoot me in front of all these people."
Tony sighed. If Charlotte had let them keep walking, he'd be shooting Konrad Ludka right about now. He motioned with his head, trying to get Charlotte to move to a better location-as in one where Ludka couldn't see her, because he had to make a move.
Standing straight up, he let the small crowd see the S&W. There were some gasps, and most of the women fled, dragging any children behind them.
"Konrad Ludka, you're under arrest for the murder of Hector Anetakis," Tony announced in a loud voice as he hauled the German to his feet.
"Screw you," Ludka spat, and went for his gun.
The gun cleared his coat. He raised it, taking a sloppy aim. The crowd screamed. Charlotte shouted Tony's name.
Tony pulled the trigger. One shot, into the heart. Ludka crumpled to the ground.
Tony watched him for a long moment. He usually went for the head shot, but he'd tried to minimize the trauma for the crowd. It didn't matter this time, because the end result was the same. Konrad Ludka was dead.
He looked for Charlotte and found her standing behind him, talking rapidly into her comm. "...and get me Christopher Savakis as soon as you can," she was saying.
Tony took a deep breath and lowered his weapon. It was over.
He could hear the pounding boots of the security running in his direction. A siren was approaching outside. The paperwork was going to be a bitch.
But all he could think about was Charlotte. He glanced her way again, but she only turned away to continue updating HQ on what had happened.
As officers surrounded him and Ludka's body, he wondered just how much was really over. Just the job, or he and Charlotte.
Chapter Eleven
New York City
"Tell me the part about Miz Scarlett and the luggage rack again."
Charlotte laughed and shook her head. "Tony's already told that story a dozen times. You must have memorized it by now."
Alex pointed at the nurse Grace was conferring with in the corner of his hospital room. "She just got here, and I know she'd want to hear it."
"It's Tony's fault. If he'd told me he had a plan before he jumped out of the car, I wouldn't have come up with my own."
Tony, who was looking decidedly uncomfortable in a metal folding chair, shook his head. "I'm not taking the blame for that. I may not be Gallagher, but even I wouldn't formulate a plan around a fake accent that atrocious, darlin'."
"It worked, didn't it?"
"More or less." His words were offered grudgingly, but he smiled at her to take the edge off.
Charlotte was sitting on the edge of Alex's bed, letting Tony and Gallagher take the two visitors' chairs. While Tony was directly in her line of sight and he was smiling now, he'd barely looked at her since they landed at LaGuardia and took a car directly to the hospital.
The hospital staff would be throwing them out in another ten minutes or so, and it would be the crossroads for her and Tony, Charlotte thought. He'd either go home with her, or he'd head back to Texas. And no matter how often she searched his face, she had absolutely no clue which way he was leaning.
"Why the southern accent?" Gallagher wanted to know.
Charlotte crossed her arms. She was never going to live this down. "It sounded dramatic at the time."
"It sounded bad at the time is what it sounded like," Tony said. Then he hauled himself to his feet and slapped Alex on one blanket-clad shin.
"Well, boss, as much I love sitting on hard metal chairs listening to your machines beep, I'm going to head out. I'll catch up with you later."
"Where you heading?" Gallagher asked before Charlotte could get the question formed.
"I've got a plane to catch and horses to ride. I've got two months R&R, and I'm taking them, effective..." He looked at his watch. "Now."
So he was leaving, then. She saw the quick, sympathetic glance Grace sent her way and looked down at her hands. She'd tried to prepare herself for this moment, but her heart was breaking and she guessed it showed.
Tony paused on his way to the door. "You want to walk me down, Miss Scarlett, or do you have some turnips to harvest?"
Laughter followed them out the door, but she didn't join in. They rode the elevator to the ground floor in silence, and when they stepped outside, she was surprised to see a car at the curb with Marge at the wheel.
"I would have made your travel arrangements if you'd asked," she said, a little more sharply than she'd intended.
"I know." He took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. "I'm sorry I botched things up," he said.
"It wasn't your fault things got botched. When you do what we do for a living, botching happens."
He shook his head. "I mean about us. I'm sorry I was an ass about what happened. It's just some shit I have to work through, and that's wrong because it should be about you, not me."
"You're wrong. It should be about us."
Tony cupped her chin with his free hand. "I need some distance from this-from you, from everything that's happened-so I can think and sort through it all."
"I still think you think too much," she said, managing a weak smile.
"Please don't give up on me, darlin'."
"Never," she whispered.
He kissed her-a hard, fast kiss that ended too soon-and then he opened the car door and climbed in. Charlotte gave Marge a quick wave before turning back to the hospital entrance.
She wouldn't beg him to stay or plead with him to call her. But she wouldn't watch him leave.
Six weeks later
"I'm being punished, aren't I?" Carmen Olivera demanded. "Why else would I be rummaging through a Republican's underwear drawer."
Charlotte smiled, adjusting her headset. "Because that's where her Democrat co-star said she saw him put the tape. According to the tracking beacon, the family is leaving the restaurant now. ETA-sixteen minutes."
"Why do people even make sex tapes?" Carmen grumbled.
"So they can relive the moment, I guess." She, on the other hand, didn't need a tape to remember every second of Tony making love to her.
The image of him smiling down at her played through her mind so often, she had no need for a video souvenir.
A phone call would be nice, though. Even before the trip to Greece, she'd never gone so long without talking to him. She missed the sound of his voice.
"Got it," Carmen reported, dragging Charlotte back to the job at hand. "Although I think they should release it to the public. Cinematic proof bipartisanship feels good. And how exactly did this become a matter of national security anyway?"
"Blackmail. I guess our horny and devious Republican is using the tape to pressure our horny and gullible Democrat into being some kind of congressional Mata Hari. There are some key Homeland Security votes coming up."
"I'm out." She heard Carmen close her car door and fire up the engine.
"Excellent." Charlotte noted the time in the file. "Seal it up in the mailer and drop it in the pick-up box-two blocks east of your current location."
"Confirmed drop," Carmen called in, only a few minutes later.
"Mission finito. So, has he called yet?"
"No." The little glow of satisfaction Charlotte got after each job faded in a hurry.
"That rat bastard," the other woman said, but without much heat.
Charlotte understood-Tony and Carmen's friendship predated the Devlin Group. Carmen walked a fine line loyalty-wise.
"You should let me hook you up," the other woman continued. "You need to put him behind you and go have some fun."
Please don't give up on me, darlin'.
"He'll call," Charlotte said quietly. Quietly enough she heard the door close in the other room.
Only a few people had the coded access necessary to get up to the penthouse and open the door-she was expecting it was Gallagher. He had to pick up a few things for the upcoming Canadian job and then he was heading to New Hampshire to spend a few days with the Rossis. The physical therapy was making Alex cranky and Grace had threatened to widow herself if Gallagher didn't go distract him.
"I've got to disconnect," she told Carmen. "Gallagher's here for some documents for the job you two are going on. I'll send the data to your handheld in a little while."
They disconnected the call, then Charlotte grabbed a file folder and stepped out into the living room.
Tony Casavetti was not who she expected to see standing in her apartment.
He was leaning against the closed door looking healthy and tan, a battered cowboy hat in his hands.
"I love you, Charlotte."
The folder slipped from her grasp, highly classified documents scattering across the floor. She tried to summon coherent words, but the rush of emotions tangled her thoughts.
He cleared his throat, twirling the hat in his hands. "I, uh...have a lot to say, but I wasn't sure how much I could get out, so I figured I'd say that first."
She started across the room, desperate for him to hold her. "That's the only thing I need to hear, Tony."
He shook his head. "No, there's more. I've spent the better part of my life-the military, the police force, the Devlin Group-willing to sacrifice myself for others, for people I don't even know. That's just who and what I am. But I've never had anybody willing to make that sacrifice for me.
"I've never been offered that kind of gift, Charlotte. Nobody's ever sacrificed anything for me. I've never had anybody love me. And then you...you gave me everything, and I didn't know how to accept it. I'd never felt anything like it and it knocked me on my ass. I didn't know what to do."
She reached him, and he took her hand in his. Only when his face blurred did she realize she was crying. "Holding me would have been a better choice than running off to Texas."
"I figured that out about five seconds after my plane took off."
She rested her cheek on his chest, and rather than let go of her hand he dropped the hat and pressed that hand to her back. "But it took you six weeks to come back?"
"I figured since I'd already been a total dumbass and left you, I may as well totally get my head on straight before I came back. I told you once I didn't know who the real Tony Casavetti is. I do now. I'm just what you see. A good ol' boy who lies and shoots people for a living and who loves you somethin' fierce, darlin'."
Charlotte tilted her head so she could look up into his face. "Lying, shooting good ol' boys who love me something fierce just happen to be my type."
He let go of her hand to pull a small box from his pocket. The fine sheen of sweat on his forehead and the slight tremble in his hand thrilled Charlotte to her toes. The man faced death on a regular basis without flinching and was scared shitless of this moment.
Pushing her back a couple of steps, he took her hand again and got down on one knee. "I know you've had a lot of expensive jewelry and stuff in your life, and you don't give a damn about that kind of thing. So..."
He flipped the box open one-handed and Charlotte's breath caught in her throat. It was beautiful. The polished stone was carved into the shape of a teardrop, and was a cloudy, almost opaque pink. It was held in a platinum setting on an unadorned band. So simple, and yet so incredibly just right for her.
"It's rose quartz," Tony told her. "It's an odd choice for a ring, I know.
But it's supposed to be about loving and healing and...the lady in the gem shop told me about it, and it just seemed right."
"It's perfect." She was crying in earnest now. "I love it. I love you."
"Will you marry me, Charlotte Rhames?" He slid the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.
"Yes!" She pulled him to his feet and he pulled her into his arms.
When he kissed the top of her head, she smiled and hiccuped.
"You just made me the happiest man in the world, darlin'. There's no way I could have faced the rest of my life without you."
"You don't have to. I'm not going anywhere."
Tony tucked her head under his chin and hugged her close. "It's a damn good day."
About the Author
Shannon Stacey married her Prince Charming in 1993 and is the proud mother of a future Nobel Prize for Science-winning bookworm and an adrenaline junkie with a flair for drama. She lives in New England, where her two favorite activities are trying to stay warm and writing stories of happily ever after.
You can contact Shannon or sign up for her newsletter through her website: www.shannonstacey.com