by Geri Krotow
He’d missed the family summer get-together at his parents’ Maine home, due to Ivanov’s disappearance and ROC’s resurgence in Silver Valley, which directly fueled the East Coast heroin trade. Luther didn’t mind doing his share of the workload; he’d known when he’d signed on with the exclusive Trail Hikers Agency that his time was even less his own than it had been as an FBI agent.
He spotted movement in his peripheral vision and froze at the bottom of the stairs. A male figure carrying a large black plastic bag hadn’t noticed him—a good thing. It took Luther a few heartbeats to recognize the branded T-shirt and cap the man wore from the local coffee shop, in the building next to his apartment building. Luther had made note of it last night when he drove into town just before midnight.
“Hey, how’s it going?” The barista tossed a large bin of recycling material into a blue bin.
“Good, thanks.” Luther was used to the anonymity of New York and its seven million citizens; Claudia had warned him that he wouldn’t move around the town of Silver Valley with as much ease. She’d been correct. Of course, the experienced intelligence operator was rarely wrong.
“You new here?” The barista smiled, crinkles around his eyes belying his trim youthful figure.
“Ah, yeah.” Man, he wasn’t used to having to make small talk, not unless he wanted to in order to nab a suspect. Luther forced himself to relax and appear like any other civilian who’d gotten a recent job transfer.
“Great. If you’re looking for a job, we’re hiring.” The man pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the coffee shop’s back entrance.
“Thanks for that. I’ve got one already, but I’ll keep it in mind.” The aroma of roasting coffee mingled with fresh baked goods in the cool air and his sweet tooth flared. But he had to be at the Silver Valley PD station in ten minutes.
“I’m Kyle.” The man held out his hand and Luther shook it.
“Luther. I’ll stop in after work for a cup of coffee.”
“You won’t regret it.”
Luther watched the man until he went back inside before he walked across the access road to his car. It was probably unnecessary, but he didn’t want the barista to know which vehicle was his.
Once in the car, he backed out of his parking spot and then turned to make his way to SVPD. Again, he caught a motion in his peripheral vision. The same barista had returned to the Dumpsters to deposit more recycling and gave him a quick nod of recognition. Luther held his hand up in a brief wave.
Yeah, Silver Valley was going to take some getting used to.
* * *
“Kit, can you come in here for a minute?”
Kit looked up from her station laptop and stood as soon as she saw Police Chief Colt Todd next to her desk.
“Yes, sir.” The veteran cop wasn’t one to put on airs, but he normally didn’t interrupt his officers when they were in the middle of filing a report. Colt knew how precious the hours of a shift were. They’d all been pulling extra hours at SVPD. The department consisted of forty-odd officers, a handful of detectives and support staff, providing around-the-clock protection to Silver Valley. Kit was officially one of the support staff, as she was an unsworn officer, but Chief Todd treated her like all the other uniformed officers. He said that just because she didn’t carry a weapon or usually accompany officers on patrol, she wasn’t any less part of the team.
Kit appreciated Colt’s empowering view but often wished she could do more than translate ROC documents, at times handwritten in cryptic Cyrillic, or aid in interrogating a Russian-speaking suspect. But her scars from Vadim were deep, and while her bruises had healed and she had few permanent skin markings from his beatings, her mental health was another story. It had taken months of therapy, which she still attended, along with a very skilled psychiatrist helping her with medication to ensure her brain had the best chance of recovering to a normal chemical balance. She also attended a support group for survivors of domestic violence and had recently stepped up to help run a weekend retreat for the local area. Since she’d graduated college, she found she did best when her weekends were occupied with service work. Living alone was a treat after years of Vadim’s suffocating behavior, but her therapy and group sessions had taught her that isolating wasn’t the answer to her recovery, either.
Kit made a few quick notes in the documents she’d been studying so that she could pick up after her meeting with Colt. Some days it seemed the fight against ROC never ended.
Central Pennsylvania had been devastated by the heroin epidemic, but Silver Valley in particular had taken a hard hit when ROC decided to make the town their headquarters for heroin distribution.
Kit saved the work she’d completed and cleared her desk before she searched for her small notebook. She knew ROC all too intimately and had made it her personal objective not to rest until they were eradicated from Silver Valley. Preferably off the planet.
She closed her laptop and took a second to pause before she stood and walked through the bay of desks and down the corridor to Colt’s office. It was still a thrill to be a part of Silver Valley PD. They’d done so much for her not too long ago, and she’d known she wanted to give back, from the minute they’d arrested her abusive husband.
She’d left more than her surname behind when Vadim Valensky had been incarcerated. He’d been locked away after being found guilty of drug and human trafficking. Kit had lost everything materially it seemed, including the house she’d come to view as a prison, but gained her priceless freedom during the ensuing investigation and Vadim’s conviction. When the government claimed the house and sold it at auction, she’d cried tears—of relief. It was the last shackle tying her to her life as the wife of an ROC henchman.
Now, to dismantle ROC. She suspected Chief Todd wanted to see her because of the work she’d begun with the SVPD team that was assigned to keep tabs on the latest ROC information.
“Sir.” She waited for her boss to motion her inside his office.
“Shut the door and then take a seat, Kit.” He motioned to the sofa against the wall and closest to his desk, where a man in black utility pants and a long-sleeved black athletic shirt stood. Her pulse quickened, and she tensed. Except...this didn’t feel like her anxiety. Anxiety didn’t make her think about how attractive a stranger was, how if she met him under other circumstances she’d want to know how his full lips felt on hers.
Oh, geez. This was so not the time.
“This is Agent Luther Darby. He’s with TH.” They were using all of their combined manpower to douse ROC’s sinister reach into Central Pennsylvania.
Kit reminded herself she was used to working with men, Luther was no different, and automatically reached her hand out to shake the agent’s hand. He engulfed her hand in a huge grip, palm to palm, and a sensation of warmth ran up her forearm. Definitely not anxiety-related. But why, of all the men in Silver Valley, did her hormones decide to wake up for someone she had to work with?
She swallowed and forced her gaze up to his face. Luther Darby’s expression was neutral, his stunning silver eyes unreadable, but the energy emanating off him was unquestionably lethal. Add in his height, at least a half foot taller than her five foot six, and his muscular build, and he was almost too much male in one person.
Relief eased the tightness in her abdomen. He was just a whole lot of testosterone, that was all. It could be any man with such a formidable presence.
“Pleased to meet you, Kit. Luther.” A gravelly voice added to his edginess.
“I’m...I’m K-Kit.” Cold sweat poured down her back, trailing under her bra strap, and she was grateful she had a suit jacket over her blouse. “I mean I’m Officer Danilenko. Unsworn. Call me Kit.” They ended their physical contact, the touch only lasting as long as necessary to define it as a handshake. Get a grip, girl.
A spark of curiosity lit Luther’s eyes, evaporating his guarded, all-business mask. He nod
ded before abruptly turning his attention back to Colt. As soon as he did, a hot flash hit Kit, but it wasn’t from hormones as she was only twenty-six. Both the cold sweat and hot flash were familiar symptoms. Great. Now her hormones were being doused with adrenaline.
Crap. This was the worst time for her PTSD to decide to ring the alarm.
“Kit, all okay?” Colt’s familiar voice grounded her in the moment. She looked at her boss, touched the corner of his desk, cool and smooth under her fingers.
“Yes, I’m good, thanks.” She smiled at Luther and at Colt, used to managing the milder symptoms of her anxiety far better than unexpected sexual desire. There was no need to broadcast every time her brain chemistry hit a blip. Colt knew about her struggles with mental illness since it was all a part of her records, and she wouldn’t have applied for the job without full disclosure. Still, she didn’t know Luther and her mental state wasn’t any of his business. Unless they were going to work together in any kind of potentially dangerous situation.
She addressed Colt. “What’s going on, Chief?”
“Shut the door, Kit. Why don’t you both sit down.” Colt sat behind his desk, and she watched Luther sit on the sofa.
Kit closed the door, then chose the cushion farthest from Agent Darby. She suspected he was FBI, but didn’t bother asking. If she needed to know, Chief Todd would tell her.
“I’m finding myself both happy and concerned to have you here together. First, it means we’re that much closer to wrapping the ROC case. Second, we’re facing down the worst criminal scourge that’s ever hit Silver Valley.” Colt had started talking before Kit even sank down into the worn leather seat.
She fought the urge to look at Luther Darby, to try and decipher the man she’d only just met. Superstition and spiritual stuff wasn’t something she relied upon on a daily basis, but if she did, she’d have to define what was happening to her as fate. There was something heavy in the air, as if fate were trying to tell her that this man was going to play a big part in her life.
It had to be work related. Men, and personal relationships with them, had been pretty much off-limits as she’d healed. And if she were to pick someone to have a relationship with, he’d have to be in a safe profession. Accounting or teaching, whatever—anything but law enforcement. Kit was done with trauma-drama in her life, save for work. She’d had enough to last a lifetime.
Chapter 3
Luther tried not to grind his teeth, but what the heck was going on? He wondered if the pressures of the ROC case had blinded Colt to the point that he couldn’t see how green and timid Kit Danilenko appeared. Luther had no problem working with a rookie, but for the final, most important part of this case—not so much.
Worse, a surge of an emotion he had zero time for rose in his gut, filled his chest with heat. He had a reflexive need to protect Kit. He didn’t know the woman, for heaven’s sake.
But she’d be a beautiful woman to get further acquainted with. He ran his hand over his face, giving himself the split second to re-center, get his thoughts out of his crotch.
“That’s why you’re the best man for the job, Luther. I wouldn’t pair Kit with just anyone.” Colt’s words jolted him from his mental ire, and he immediately felt a flood of remorse. He’d missed what Colt had said.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t be here if both Colt and Claudia didn’t recommend you.” He aimed his comment at Kit, who sat a bit straighter. The wariness in her blue eyes had turned to defiance. He swore he saw sapphire sparks in her large irises.
“Obviously.”
Yeah, he’d interpreted her take on him accurately.
“I mean, we’re in the middle of ending the most influential crime ring in the US since the Latin American drug cartels came on the scene. It makes sense that we’ve both got the training it’s going to take to finish it up.” Luther tried to clean up how he’d spoken to her but wanted to groan with frustration. He sounded like an idiot.
“You’re not going into anything more than a surveillance mission, Luther. Kit’s the SVPD surveillance expert, and her TH training makes her one of their best, too.” Colt resumed control of the meeting and Luther took his cue. But he didn’t stop checking out the partner he’d be working with for the next several days, according to Claudia.
She was small, but he wouldn’t think of her as petite. She grasped the arms of her chair with slim but capable hands, and he noted there was no ring on her left hand. Not that he was interested in her marital status, or lack thereof.
He forced his attention to Colt. “Any op against ROC can become more than what we planned for.” He knew it firsthand and had almost died in several stakeout ops that had blown up into full-on shoot-outs.
“As Colt said, I’m experienced with surveillance, and being mostly behind the scenes. If it grows into something larger, we can always call in backup. This isn’t my first op, Luther.” Kit spoke as if she were siding with Colt, making it clear she didn’t expect their op to be more than a snooze fest.
“First or five hundredth op, each should be treated as your only op.” His words were sharper than he’d intended but he couldn’t ignore the thrill of seeing how she reacted to them. To him. Her cheeks flushed and her breath hitched, making the curve of her breasts—
Stop. Now. He needed an extra long workout today.
“You’re both right.” Colt cleared his throat. He didn’t look comfortable playing mediator, and Luther wanted to kick himself for putting his new colleague in this position. “It should be a fairly straightforward mission once you’re in the field.”
Colt’s reminder that they’d be alone, in the middle of nowhere, wasn’t what Luther needed, not with Kit sitting right next to him, with his libido sending definite messages about how attractive Kit was. All he’d been through in the botched affair with an ROC mob wife apparently hadn’t taught him a dang thing. Already Kit’s eyes distracted him, and earlier a glimpse of her legs caught his attention when she walked in.
Luther didn’t do distractions.
“I’m confident Kit and I have the experience between the two of us to do whatever the mission requires.” Maybe if he said it aloud fifty times, he’d get his head back on the mission and off what Kit’s presence was doing to his dick.
* * *
Kit hadn’t gotten involved with anyone since Vadim’s arrest. Even in her very unhappy marriage she’d never had the urge, or opportunity, to even consider cheating on her husband. Men were an enigma to her, on so many levels. Why wouldn’t they be when she’d been brought to the States from a small town in Ukraine, under false pretenses as a teen, and within a month was married to a man three times her age?
Luther Darby, however, was different. Her palm still tingled.
Stop. It’s the anxiety.
But she wasn’t feeling all doom and gloom, the way her panic attacks hit her. And she hadn’t had one in a very long time. Her attitude toward life in general, had improved greatly in the past year. Never better, in fact.
“ROC plays for keeps, that’s a certainty.” Luther’s low voice shook her out of her self-analysis. It was oddly reassuring since he was someone she’d just met.
“They take no prisoners.” The words slipped out and she risked a quick glance at Luther. Colt knew her story, but to this agent she was no one but another colleague. The desire to show him she was competent surged.
What did her friend, and Annie’s grandmother, Essie, who owned Silver Threads yarn shop, always tell her? The astute septuagenarian’s words echoed in her mind as she tried to focus on Colt’s speech. “Soul recognition is the most powerful force on Earth, maybe even in Heaven, too.”
A tiny snort escaped her lips and Colt looked at her as he spoke, probably wondering what the heck she was thinking. She gave her best listening expression and mentally chided herself for getting distracted by a man she’d known all of seven minutes, tops.
“We’ve already got the best of the best working all aspects of bringing ROC down, but there’s a gap.” Colt shuffled the papers in front of him. He had a computer like everyone else but still preferred to print the intelligence reports to aid in his analysis of the information on the computer. “As you both know, Dima Ivanov remains at large, and we believe Ludmilla Markova is with him.”
“If he hasn’t already killed her.” Kit wished she could take the words back. Why did she have to say everything that came into her mind? Seemed the intensive therapy she’d gone through while getting her criminal justice degree had unleashed her inner bigmouth. Being free of the fear-induced repression living with Vadim had caused was welcome and necessary to her survival. Offering her opinion all the time, especially when not asked, was another thing.
“Why do you think he’d kill her?” Luther’s query took a lethal slice to her theory. “I think he needs her alive to get what he wants.”
Kit shrugged. “It’s what ROC does. They eliminate anyone who poses a threat. We can’t be sure, but it’s pretty clear from what we’ve learned from the prison guards and other inmates that Markova was running her own drug distribution ring from prison. A kind of anti-ROC. She added meth and cocaine to the heroin, which she cut with fentanyl. Ivanov is not one to put up with a double-crosser, and one who’s built upon a business he took years to establish.” Her voice didn’t waver, but she wondered if Luther heard the slight accent she’d been unable to drop no matter how much she studied English. She was perfectly fluent and had lived here for almost a dozen years. Yet when she was nervous or tired, her Ukrainian accent came through.
“You can’t make assumptions with ROC. That’s what gets officers and agents killed.” Luther was suffering no fools, and somehow she instinctively knew he placed her in the “fool” category. What was the man’s story?