by Pam Godwin
As she met his stare head-on, she swore she saw that look again, the one from before when she thought she felt something forging between them. Something real and not of this cold, ugly world.
Tingling sparked through her arms and fingers, and she gulped a breath.
“In less than a minute, we’re going to be under fire.” Mike scuttered back and forth behind her, collecting weapons. “Time to go.”
The moment she’d shot the first bullet, the report had alerted the rest of the team of trouble. Any second, ten men would explode through that door with more firepower than she and Mike could defend.
“Hurry.” He slapped a knife onto the platform beside Cole and sprinted across the ramp toward the parked vehicles.
Two motorcycles sat out there somewhere among the cars and trucks, with the keys in the ignitions.
“We’ll take the bikes,” she shouted after Mike and cut one of Cole’s arms free.
Then she set the blade in his hand so that he could remove the rest. As he calmly sawed his way through the rope, she replaced the magazine in her gun and stepped back, keeping the weapon trained on him.
Outside, Mike darted from one parked vehicle to the next, slashing all the tires. All but the two bikes they would leave with.
“Have you ever killed a man?” Cole freed his arm and moved to his legs, regarding her from beneath his dark brows.
“N—” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “No.”
“You did good. Most people hesitate the first time.” The corner of his mouth quirked up as he glanced at the gash on his arm. “You didn’t.”
“I made a choice.” She held the gun with both hands, her fingers clammy and ribcage wrapped in rubber bands. “Don’t make me regret it.”
He cut through the final restraint and shoved to his feet, his gaze instantly falling on the dead bodies, scanning their clothes. She knew what he was looking for, but Mike had already taken the weapons.
She might’ve sabotaged the entire fucking mission to save Cole’s life. But that didn’t mean she and Mike trusted him with a gun. If he was the revengeful sort, she wasn’t safe.
She would never be safe again.
An ache swelled in her chest.
Walk away, Lydia.
He stared at her, expressionless, and she stared back, miserable and heartbroken. There was so much to say. If things had been different, if she were a gentler person with better circumstances…
There was no time.
“Go.” She stepped forward, aiming the gun at his handsome face. “You’re free. Take the second bike and get out of here.”
“Lydia!” Mike yelled from outside as the engine of a motorcycle rumbled to life.
Cole’s dark gaze lifted toward the door thirty yards behind her, and his eyebrows pinched. In the next heartbeat, the door crashed open.
“Run!” She raced toward the ramp and found Mike waiting at the far end on the motorcycle.
Shots fired, pelting the ground behind her and whistling past her head. The spare bike sat twenty-some yards in the other direction. But rather than darting for it, Cole remained at her back, breathing down her neck.
“Get out of here!” She pointed at his ride. “That way!”
The volley of bullets multiplied as more men poured onto the loading dock. A couple of them were closing in, gaining on her. She couldn’t outrun the spray of lead.
As she started to turn and fire back, a hand gripped her arm.
Everything happened so fast, the chaos of gunfire ricocheting in her ears, disorienting her as Cole yanked her off the ramp.
Her back hit the ground, and he fell atop of her, dodging bullets with laughter in his eyes.
What the fuck? Her heart thundered so violently she thought her ribs were cracking. And he was laughing?
“First gunfight?” He grinned down at her, his shirtless chest smothering her in heat.
Yes. But before she could answer, he plucked the pistol from her grip, extended his arm, and returned fire.
Pinned beneath him, she craned her neck and watched the men scatter. Two of them dropped, hit by Cole’s bullets. At least six more took cover.
On the other side of the ramp, Mike sped forward on the motorcycle, firing his gun at the shooters on the loading dock.
Cole used the diversion to wrap his arms around her and roll them across the ground, seeking cover. He found it beneath a nearby box truck, where he yanked her up and dragged her around to the other side, shoving her behind it, shielding her from gunfire.
Buying them time.
A moment.
With her back pressed to the vehicle, he leaned in and flattened a hand on the steel above her head. Her breathing tumbled into asthmatic hysteria while his remained normal, controlled, unnervingly composed.
But his eyes told a different story, the dark depths pulsing with the hungry fires of hell.
This wasn’t the man who fucked her ass and knocked her away with a nasty sneer. This devil was far more deadly, possessive, protective, deeply passionate, and complicated. She stared into the soul of a man she could fall in love with.
The longing that gripped her was enormous, the pull toward him more than she could bear.
“Go.” She shoved at his chest.
Gunfire boomed just beyond the truck, growing closer. Amid the mayhem, she heard the motorcycle, the engine revving, speeding toward her.
“Leave.” She slammed her palms against his shoulders and pushed harder. “You’re free!”
He stepped back, swaying with her shove. Then he was on her again, cupping her head with both hands. With the gun in his grip, the length of it lay against her cheek as he held her, forcing her to look at him.
“Darius Skutnik.” His thumb tenderly stroked across her cheekbone.
“What?”
“The nașu of the Romanian mafia. The godfather.” He brought their foreheads together and breathed against her lips. “He has the hard drive.”
Shock and elation stole through her, weakening her legs and her voice. But she didn’t need either as he lifted her up his body and kissed her hard on the mouth. His tongue knifed past her lips. His beard scratched her face, and his fingers dug into the backs of her thighs.
She grabbed his shoulders to pull. No, to push. It was too much. He was too much.
He wrenched his mouth away and turned just as Mike rolled up on the motorcycle.
“Let her go.” He trained the gun on Cole. “They’re coming.”
Cole shifted and set her on the seat behind Mike. As he pulled back, her heart tore. Another retreating step, and her trembling hands slid off his shoulders, down his biceps, her fingers curling, hanging on.
He slipped free, and her palm came away wet. Soaked in blood.
“Oh my God.” Her eyes darted to the hole in his arm, her bloody hand reaching for him. “You were shot?”
Footsteps stampeded toward the truck.
Cole’s gaze stayed with her for another second before he tore it away, spun, and fired the pistol.
“Hold on!” Mike opened the throttle, and the motorcycle lurched forward. She wrapped her arms around him and twisted, watching as Cole shot into the fray and sprinted toward the second bike.
Her hair whipped around her face, obstructing her view as Mike put more and more separation between them and the gunfight. She didn’t breathe until she heard the roar of another engine. She didn’t straighten her neck until Cole appeared off in the distance, bent low over the bike as he sped through the desert in the opposite direction.
Twilight approached, streaking the horizon in ribbons of orange and violet. Within seconds, the swirling shadows swallowed his form. He was safe.
Gone.
A painful clot amassed deep inside her, and a terrible burn bubbled from her chest, forming a lump in her throat and searing the backs of her eyes. Everything she felt was irrational and wrong, but it was real.
What she felt for him was real and raw and unbearable.
She
screwed her eyes shut and rested her cheek against Mike’s strong back, her arms holding him tight.
They survived. All three of them. And Cole had given her a name. Now she knew the location of the hard drive.
This wasn’t over.
Not the job.
And not this other thing…this unresolved connection.
She knew at gut level she hadn’t seen the last of Cole Hartman.
Drenched in sweat and trammeled by exhaustion, Cole stood at the bathroom sink in Tomas’ vacant house and patched up the gunshot wound.
It was a clean shot through his bicep, with an entry and exit point. It would hurt like a bitch for a while and fuck with his muscle movement. But it could’ve been worse.
He could be lying beneath the stonecutter in a hundred sliced-up pieces.
Once he finished treating the injury, he slumped onto the couch and contemplated who to call first.
Maybe because the image of red hair was heavy on his mind, he dialed the only ginger he knew.
Luke answered with a heavy exhale of relief. “Holy shit, you’re alive.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“The doubt was real.”
“I’m safe, in case you’re wondering.”
“Where are you?”
“Making a pit stop at the house in the desert.”
He couldn’t stay here. Lydia knew about this place, which meant the person she’d just betrayed knew about it, too. He just needed to grab some gear. Shit, shower, and shave. Then he would be on his way.
“You’ve been missing for a goddamn month,” Luke growled. “Where have you been?”
Despite the overload of fatigue and unease, Cole managed a smile. It was nice to have people who cared enough to worry about him.
“Calm down.” He chuckled. “I made it out with all my parts intact.”
“We thought you were dead.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“We had a funeral service and everything. Van cried. Huge crocodile tears. It made everyone uncomfortable.”
“Fuck off.”
“Seriously, man.” Luke’s voice sobered. “We’ve been freaked the fuck out. What happened?”
“I spent a month in a pitch-black cell, eating hot dogs and listening to thrash metal music.”
“Are you fucking with me?”
“Wish I was.”
“What about the freaky Russian pin-up girl? Did she do that to you?”
“She isn’t Russian.” His heart drummed at the mention of her, his thoughts a conflicting jumble of anger and desire. “She restrained me, fucked me, and saved my life.”
A stretch of silence ensued, followed by Luke’s exhale. “I can’t tell by your tone if you participated or if it was torture, so I’m just going to come out and ask. Were you raped?”
Coming from Luke, it was an earnest question. He’d been raped by Van, and most recently, by a strap-on worn by a crazy bitch in La Rocha Cartel.
“Dubious,” Cole said. “In the end, I fucked her in the ass.”
He gave Luke a rundown of the events, walking through the details, and answering one-hundred-and-one questions.
Once Luke was up to speed, Cole asked, “Is everyone back in Colombia?”
“Yeah, we’re all here. We stayed in Texas for a few weeks. When we couldn’t find you, we assumed you’d been transported out of the state. Or out of the country. We didn’t know. So we returned home where we could regroup in a safe place and wait for you to make contact, per your orders.”
“You did good.”
“Now what? There’s a lot you don’t know about these people. What are you going to do?”
“I can leave the country and join you guys in Colombia. If they’re hunting me, they won’t be able to find me there.”
“You’re talking about hiding.” Luke made a huffing sound. “We both know you won’t do that. You’re going to go after her.”
“I’m going to track her. Whatever she’s involved in is big. Bigger than she can handle. She’s in way over her head.”
“You want to help this woman?”
“No. I don’t want anything to do with this shit. But I need to know. Fuck.” He scrubbed a hand over his head, on edge and needing sleep. “I need to know who she is and what she’s trying to achieve.”
He would stay in the shadows and remain unseen. No contact with her. No exceptions. Whoever she betrayed today wasn’t going to let her live. That hard drive held something valuable. Valuable enough to orchestrate an elaborate plan that involved a fifteen-man team, a Russian swallow, and the capture of a retired operative from the activity.
A shit storm was brewing. He felt it in his bones.
“How can we help?” Luke asked.
“I need to follow her every movement without being seen by her or whoever might be hunting her.”
“You need Romero.”
“Yep.”
Romero was the computer whiz kid who had been instrumental in helping Luke and Vera escape La Rocha Cartel earlier this year. The kid had designed and maintained the proprietary technology that secured the cartel compound, but his range of tech skills went far beyond that.
“I’m heading through the halls to look for him now.” Luke’s breathing picked up, confirming he was on the move. “He can hack into security systems and run facial recognition software on the camera footage, but he’ll need information. Names, aliases, physical descriptions, whatever you have.”
“I can give him hair color, eye color, height, weight, a detailed description of every tattoo on her body, what she was wearing when she left the desert, how she dresses, which direction she headed, and so on.”
“Okay, cool. I’ll call you back in a bit. In the meantime, you need to get out of that house.”
“On it.”
It took him ten minutes to pack all the clothes, weapons, tech gear, and travel documents he would need for an extended mission. More time was doled to showering and shaving off his beard, as well as all the hair on his head. He grabbed Danni’s engagement ring and secured the chain around his neck. Then he devoured a can of chili.
When Luke called back, he put Romero on the phone, and Cole gave the kid every detail he had on Lydia and Mike. It was probably more information than Romero would need. The tattoos alone would make Lydia stand out like a beacon.
“Give me a few hours,” Romero said. “Should I contact you at this number?”
“Yeah, it’s a secure phone. Thanks, Romero.”
“You bet.”
Six hours later, Cole was sitting on a bench outside Dallas Fort Worth International Airport when his phone buzzed.
Concealed behind sunglasses and the bill of a baseball hat, he lifted the device to his ear. “What do you have for me?”
“Two hours ago,” Romero said, “a woman and man matching your description bought airline tickets at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. They’re traveling under the names Lydia and Micheál Johnson.”
His pulse kicked up. “Excellent work, kid.”
He’d gone to the airport in Dallas on a hunch that they would fly somewhere. But he didn’t need to be in the same airport to follow them to their destination.
“Their flight leaves in three hours,” Romero said. “Headed to London. You want the flight info?”
“Nah. I just need to know where they go after they land. Can you track them overseas?”
“Now that I have the names they’re using and digital images of their faces, I can track them anywhere.”
“They probably travel under multiple aliases.”
“I won’t lose them,” Romero said with excitement in his voice.
“I know you won’t.” He stood and grabbed his bag. “I’ll call you when I land.”
“I’ll be here.”
As he strode into the airport to buy a ticket to London, a voice in the back of his head told him to forget this quest. He had no stakes in it. Nothing to offset the risks he would be taking.
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Except the woman.
In seven years, no one had come close to capturing his interest. He was officially, certifiably enthralled, and until he understood why, he wasn’t walking away from this.
Rome, Italy
Six months later
Lydia’s hand grew hot and sticky in Mike’s unbending grip as he led her through the exclusive nightclub. Prolonged exhaustion and stress lived in her bones, the weeks blurring into months until she’d lost track of where she was and how much time she had left.
But she didn’t lose track of faces. She memorized every detail of every person she passed, knowing any one of them could be connected to her.
Her shoulder blades twitched, her spine tingling with the feeling of exposure. Not just from the backless dress, but from the constant sensation of being watched.
She and Mike weren’t just hunting. They were being hunted.
Her neck tightened with the impulse to look over her shoulder. But she kept her eyes directed at Mike’s broad back and reached out her senses, probing the shadows around them.
Her short blonde bob and skintight sequin dress blended in with this crowd. The wig hid her hair, and heavy makeup covered the tattoos on her arms and chest and completely altered the contours of her face.
She looked like a drag queen, and Mike played the role of her gay lover. He’d grown out his brown hair and dyed the shaggy mop black. His fashionable linen suit, yellow bowtie, and lopsided Bruce Willis grin underscored the facade. Who knew he could look so adorable?
Every week brought a different city and a different disguise. Through Romania, Italy, Spain, England, France, and Moldova, they tracked the highest-ranking made members of the Romanian crime family, all the while staying one step ahead of the threat on their heels.
Vincent Barrington’s men.
She’d already killed two of his assassins since leaving the states. More would follow. Vincent needed that hard drive. His livelihood depended on it, and his only means to find it was through her, Mike, or Cole.
Since she’d betrayed Vincent and escaped with Mike and Cole, Vincent’s objective would be to kill them all—and hope to get the hard drive’s location from one of them before they died.