by Pam Godwin
“It doesn’t matter who you are, Cole. I’m only interested in what you know. I need the name of the entity who bought that stolen property.”
“And I need a toothbrush.”
“I told you I would think about it.”
“Who do you work for?” He drew up a knee and dangled his injured hand over it, regarding her with lazy detachment. “You’re not secret intelligence. Definitely not U.S. government.”
She smiled. “Does the accent give it away?”
“No, your lack of knowledge does.”
She tried not to be offended, but he hit the mark. She’d been trained by a battle-hardened spy, but she didn’t work for the NSA or any other agency. She wasn’t in the know about domestic or foreign affairs.
She was completely out of her league.
“Why would stolen intel from eleven years ago have any relevance today?” he asked.
That got her attention. If he’d known anything about the information she sought, he wouldn’t have asked that question.
“How do you not know?” She searched his eyes, her mind spinning. “You took down the defector who sold the intel, but you didn’t know what that intel was?”
He just stared at her.
Well, this was unexpected, but it changed nothing. If anything, it gave her more leverage. He didn’t care about the missing property. His only stake in this was his survival.
“How do you know about Thurney Bridge?” he asked.
What? She searched her memory and came up blank. She had no idea what he was talking about.
Hiding her confusion, she tucked away his question to investigate later. “Tell me who bought the stolen intel.”
“I don’t know.”
His tone held conviction, his gaze unblinking. She almost believed him. Almost.
A lot of money, time, and risk had been put into Cole Hartman’s capture because he was the only one close to Marie Merivale. He might not have known what she was selling, but he knew every person involved, including the buyer.
Lydia’s team had made numerous attempts to interrogate Marie. Fruitless attempts. Federal prison was the safest, most inaccessible place for her to be. Any threats to her life were impossible. She had no family or friends to use against her. She was a dead end.
“If Marie wasn’t in a high-security prison,” she said, “we would’ve taken her instead of you. Think about that, Cole. If you would’ve just let her go and returned to your fiancée, you wouldn’t be in this dilemma. And maybe your girl wouldn’t have fucked your best friend.”
His jaw set, and a vein bulged in his forehead.
Shit. She didn’t mean to piss him off. That wasn’t her goal.
“I shouldn’t have said that. For what it’s worth.” She lowered onto the crate beside him and fidgeted with the hem of her dress. “No matter how perfect you think she was for you, there’s always someone better.”
He barked a humorless laugh. “You don’t believe in love? Or fate?”
“In our line of work, there is only war, and that, tigryenok, is always fueled by hate.”
“There’s a quote—I think it’s G.K. Chesterton—that goes something like, A soldier fights not because he hates what’s in front of him, but because he loves what’s behind him.” He lowered his voice, his cadence thoughtful as he rubbed his forehead. “We all have something valuable behind us, compelling us to fight. You already know mine. My friends, the people you threatened, they’re my family.”
That was the most personal thing he’d ever revealed, and she was so taken with the unguarded nature of his words that she didn’t move, didn’t dare interrupt.
“I’ll be honest,” he said, “when you showed me the video of the drone, it scared the shit out of me. Those people are irreplaceable. Not because they’re perfect. They’re not. But because they’re mine. Mine to protect. Mine to fight for.”
“Like Danni?”
“Yes, including Danni. So here I am, protecting them, fighting for them, not out of hate, but out of love. Because that’s what people do.” He dropped his head and raised his eyes, peering at her through his thick lashes. “Don’t kid yourself, Lydia. There’s more to this, to you, than hate. What are you fighting for? What do you love?”
An unwanted flutter thrummed in her belly. Everything he said gripped her deeply, his questions stroking hidden nerves. And those bottomless brown eyes… Jesus, they seemed to understand her. She wanted him to see more, to hear and feel her reasons.
She opened her mouth to answer him. And snapped it shut.
It was a trap. A damn good one. If she weren’t so jaded, she would’ve fallen for it.
“I know what you’re doing.” She sat taller, meeting him stare for stare.
“Enlighten me.”
“Maybe you’re used to charming the pants off women before they even stop to wonder why, but…” Her breath caught, her eyes narrowing on the panties wrapped around his hand.
The panties, she realized with dawning horror, that she’d handed over without questioning the real reason he wanted them.
“You were saying?” His thumb roved over the silk on his palm, his expression stony.
Heat bloomed across her skin, her anger rising and something else, something stirring low in her belly. She hated him for this. For tricking her, and at the same time, turning her on.
She could be a petty bitch about it and take back the damn underwear. But no, that wasn’t her. Instead, she shook it off and gave credit where credit was due.
“I don’t know how you did it.” She rose to her feet and smiled down at him. “I don’t know how you talked me out of my underwear, but well done.”
“You wanted me to have them.”
Did she? God, maybe she did. “I won’t fall for it next time.”
“I look forward to it.” He leaned his head back against the crate and closed his eyes. “Until next time, Lydia.”
She stood there, bewildered and captivated.
Did he just dismiss her?
He was fucking playing her. She didn’t know how exactly, but she felt it in her gut.
She didn’t know his skill set, his training, or his background, but if the last few hours taught her anything, it was that she faced an opponent who wouldn’t be easily defeated.
Without another glance, she strode toward Mike, who waited with an expectant look.
“Return him to his cell.” She dipped her voice to a whisper. “Don’t trust a word he says. Search him for weapons and watch your back.” She scanned the warehouse. “I’m going to double the number of guards on him.”
“What happened?”
Cole was too confident, too smart, and sneaky as fuck. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d stolen away a sharp rock or piece of glass when she wasn’t looking. But it was his mouth that worried her the most. He knew how to manipulate people.
“Just following my gut.” She squeezed Mike’s hand. “We’ll talk later.”
She left the factory floor and strode down the corridor, her mind replaying every word and interaction she’d just shared with Cole. Had she unknowingly revealed something important? What if she’d said too much?
Lost in her thoughts, she turned the corner and collided with a hard body.
“Shit!” She looked up, coming face to face with Alec.
“In a hurry?” His smirk made her skin crawl.
“It’s been a day.” She side-stepped him only to be blocked again. “Move.”
“Not so fast.” He held out a phone. “You have a call.”
The screen showed an unknown caller, but it could only be one person. Vincent Barrington. If he’d been waiting on the other end for any length of time, he wasn’t going to be pleasant. Not that he knew the meaning of the word.
Drawing in a deep breath, she snatched the phone from Alec’s hand and glared at him until he finally shifted to the side. She exited the building through a side door and took a short sidewalk that led to nothing but desert sand and a postcard-view of t
he sunset.
“Privet i trakhat’ tebya,” she said sweetly into the phone.
“Speak English, or I’ll replace you with someone who will.” Vincent had a high-pitched vocal range with the twang of small-town Georgia. When he was angry, it could shatter glass. Like now. She held the phone away from her ear as he screamed, “When I call, do not keep me waiting!”
She made him wait two full seconds before responding in a monotone. “I was working.”
“I don’t give a fuck. I want an update.”
He’d given her until the end of the year to complete the job. She still had two months. Plenty of time. But he had control issues, a severe lack of patience, and far more at stake in this operation than she did.
“As expected,” she said, “he’s not talking yet. But he will.”
“But he vill,” he echoed, mocking her accent. “I want to know when.”
“When he realizes it’s his only option.” Slipping off her heels, she stepped into the warm desert sand. “He asked me how I knew about Thurney Bridge. What is he talking about?”
“I find it concerning that you’re interrogating me instead of him.”
“I find it concerning,” she spat, her voice rising, “that you hired me for a job without giving me all the details to complete it.”
“Careful, little girl. You’re walking on very thin ice.”
She pulled in a calming breath and moved on. “He doesn’t know what’s on the stolen hard drive.”
“Of course, he doesn’t. His only job was to uncover who sold the information, just like your only job is to uncover who bought it. Anything else is on a need-to-know, and neither of you needs…to…know.”
He drawled out the last part in a condescending tone as if she were stupid for even mentioning it. Little did he know, when she finished this job, he would be the bigger fool.
“Anything else?” She paused, listening, and realized he’d already disconnected. “Good talk, Vincent. You heartless cunt.”
He hadn’t called to get an update from her. He received those from Alec.
The door opened behind her, followed by the tread of footsteps. A lighter flicked. A cloud of cigarette smoke billowed over her shoulder. She knew it was Alec before he spoke.
“Vincent’s getting impatient.”
“Vincent was born impatient.” She turned to face him, holding the phone in one hand and the heels in the other while wearing a smile that veiled her distrust.
“Step out of the way, and I’ll get Cole Hartman to sing.”
“What do you know about him?”
He puffed on the cigarette, watching her through the smoke. “Give me an hour with him, and I’ll know everything.”
“Have you ever tortured a man? How about one who was trained to endure months of unspeakable pain?”
The idiot shrugged.
“The only thing you know is how to run your mouth about shit you don’t know.” She tossed the phone at him. “Until you have something useful to offer, shut the fuck up.”
She strode toward the door, knowing full well he wouldn’t let her have the last word.
Sure enough, his footfalls followed. Her muscles tightened, and she adjusted her grip on her heels, holding one in each hand.
As she reached the door, his palm slammed against it above her head, preventing her from opening it. Out of the corner of her eye, his cigarette skipped into the desert.
Over the past few months, her position on this team had been challenged repeatedly. Some of the men didn’t like taking orders from a woman. A few thought because they were bigger than her or because she dressed the way she did that it was an invitation to take whatever they wanted.
They all tried. And failed.
She’d been waiting for Alec to make a move. Of course, just like the others, he chose to jump her when she was alone.
Fucking pussy.
“I have something useful to offer.” He pressed his weight against her back and ground his hips. “Lift that dress, and I’ll show you.”
“Oh, yeah?” She turned her face toward him, resting her chin on her shoulder.
As if caught by an invisible string, his lips crept toward hers, closer, closer, close enough.
She bent her knees and dropped just enough to twist around and hook the heel of her shoe into the corner of his mouth. He yelped, ensnared, as she used the three-inch spike to wrench his head toward the ground.
His hands grappled to dislodge the shoe. But she had control of his head, and where the head went, the body followed. The technique forced him into a large step, opening up an easy takedown. Wobbly balance, a slight turn in his spine, and just like that, his mobility was fucked.
In the next breath, she had him in the sand, his mouth fish-hooked by one heel, and the other pressed into the inner corner of his bulging eye.
“I’m a twitch away,” she said in a bored tone, “from slamming this into your tiny brain. Give me a reason, Alec.”
His throat jogged with a hard swallow, his mouth gaping like a dying fish on a hook.
“Your job is to follow orders. My orders and Vincent’s.” She batted her eyelashes. “That’s not so hard, is it?”
He tried to shake his head.
“Just so we’re clear.” She put her face in his, adding slight pressure on the spike against his eye. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
A sound of agreement coughed from the back of his mouth.
Good enough.
She rose to her feet and brushed off her dress. Without sparing him a glance, she entered the building, confident he wouldn’t follow.
He didn’t.
The next day, Cole received the usual ration of hot dogs, two fresh buckets, and some things he didn’t expect. With a menacing scowl, the guard tossed in a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a box of medical supplies. None of it would help him escape, but it revealed a great deal about his captors.
One in particular.
Sitting naked in the dark with thrash metal music banging against his skull, he brushed his teeth, blindly patched up his hand, and thought about Lydia.
She wasn’t who she pretended to be. She’d said as much during their conversation, but it was what she didn’t say that gave her away.
During the few hours he’d spent with her yesterday, he’d put together a rudimentary profile on her. But he needed more time, a few more interactions to formulate a comprehensive outline of her identity, her mental and moral qualities, and most importantly, her motivation.
Once he understood her stakes, he could manipulate her from that angle.
She appeared to be the one in charge here, but this job was only one piece of a bigger operation. An operation that was controlled and funded by someone else. He’d figured out that much when he asked her about Thurney Bridge. She didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
That meant someone else had hired the hitman who attacked Rylee. Someone else was responsible for killing Rylee’s neighbor and two motel clerks. Lydia hadn’t been involved.
He shouldn’t have felt so relieved, but dammit, he couldn’t ignore the lightness in his chest. The hope. Irrational fucking hope that Lydia was more than just a criminal for hire, that maybe she had a forgivable reason for threatening his friends with a hellfire missile.
Dangerous thoughts.
He couldn’t get attached. His only priority was survival, and if it came down to it, he would choose his life over hers.
He would choose Danni’s life over everyone and everything.
They knew where she lived. But he couldn’t dwell on that. He trusted Trace to protect her. There was no one on the planet who would keep her safer than her husband.
Resting his head against the wall, he drummed his fingers on the box of supplies. Lydia had given into his demand for a toothbrush, and the guards weren’t happy about it. She hadn’t stabbed needles under his fingernails or waterboarded him to death, and the guards didn’t appear to be happy about that, either.
Other th
an her obvious relationship with Mike, she wasn’t in sync with the rest of her team. They wanted to torture him for the information while she seemed to have a different agenda.
When she looked at him, he didn’t see his demise shining in her eyes. Quite the opposite. The flush in her cheeks, the quiver in her legs, the blatant sexual attraction that radiated from her pores—she wanted him.
But it could all be part of the act.
Sexpionage was a common practice among intelligence services all over the world, especially in Russia. It was a filthy tactic to elicit information, executed by trained ravens and swallows who had little left of their humanity.
Lydia had a red swallow inked on her chest. Was it a clue? It seemed too obvious, but if she was a hired swallow, she had only one objective here—to compromise him sexually. She certainly dressed the part, and it would explain why she hadn’t tortured him. Her beauty alone would bring a weaker man to his knees.
But beneath the evocative cleavage and overdone makeup, he detected something softer, something akin to…kindness. An unfeeling sex spy wouldn’t give her target a toothbrush and medical supplies. Unless that was part of her act? A ploy to seduce him into trusting her?
He pressed his fingers to his brow, his head pounding with the music and the weariness of his thoughts.
What a goddamn mindfuck.
The kicker was he could give them what they wanted right now. He could bang on the door and tell them who bought the stolen hard drive from Marie Merivale. But the moment he gave it up, he was a dead man.
They had no intention of letting him walk out of here. The only thing keeping him alive was the information in his head.
He had to escape.
So he remained silent, biding his time, waiting for an opportunity to make his move.
That opportunity lay with Lydia.
If she intended to fuck him into compliance, he would be the one doing the fucking.
He would fuck her until she sobbed his name, surrendered to his will, and begged him for more.
Over the next two weeks, the guards dragged Cole out of the dark, tossed the same pair of unwashed jeans at him, and forced him to move the rock pile from one pallet to the other. Back and forth, every day, he hauled granite, strained muscles, and slowly lost his mind.