Every Last Breath

by Juno Rushdan

  Fury had lit his eyes, biting sarcasm had chewed through his words, and Maddox cringed on the inside.

  Cole stood, nudging her away from him.

  Grasping the top of the towel, she longed to cover up with the thickest pair of sweats she owned. Back to square one. The phone stopped ringing, and she exhaled.

  “You should open the envelope,” he said, his tone icy.

  She eyed the gleaming gold letters on the envelope and was torn. A to Z, the mission first, her head prompted, but her body and heart won by majority.

  This was an opportunity to clear the air she didn’t want to lose. “The passcode can wait.”

  “It’s not a passcode.” Cole’s expression was closed down, hard and frigid. “You asked for my help. From the looks of things, you’re still going to need it. And when this is done, we can be done.”

  Everything seemed to slow down—her breath, her thoughts. Everything except for the way her chest pinched and the ache that flowed. “Is that what you want?” Her voice came out a thread of sound.

  He stared at her, letting the question dangle, like the blade of a pendulum over her throat. She dreaded him leaving again worse than dying.

  The NOC—nonofficial cover—cell phone rang again. She wanted to smash it.

  “You better answer that.” He turned and grabbed his backpack.

  The tattoo was still on his back. Her ink. Unaltered. A dazzling serpent swallowing its tail etched on the length of his spine in a double ouroboros infinity loop. Her birthdate, the Chinese zodiac year of the snake, hidden in the stunning mosaic of the colorful body.

  Till I Die inked across his traps.

  The punch of seeing it might as well have been a fist to the solar plexus, leaving her breathless.

  She cleared her throat and answered the phone. “Yes.”

  “Can you speak?” asked a tinny female voice.

  “Is this Harper?”

  “Yes. You need to know what’s happened. Blackburn and Callahan are both dead.”

  Two of the biggest players in arms trafficking, two of five invited to bid at the auction. “What? How?”

  Cole threw on a fresh tee from his bag, coming toward her.

  “Blackburn took a bullet to the head yesterday in London,” Harper said. “Callahan went up in a car bomb in Philadelphia last night.”

  Maddox stared at Cole’s injured shoulder. “Someone went after Ilya Reznikov this morning, but he’s alive.”

  Cole stood close, shy of contact. Heat suffused her face and slithered down her chest, forcing her to look away from him.

  “Did you get the passcode?” Harper asked.

  Maddox picked up the envelope. The weight of the paper was heavy, pricey. She opened it and took out a thick card, gilded in gold.

  “Fuck.” The word left her mouth in a whisper. She looked up at Cole, who wore an I told you so expression.

  “What is it?” Harper asked.

  “It’s not a passcode. They’re coordinates. 39°13’23.8’ N, 76°29’22.6’ W. The invitation says black tie, no weapons or a penalty will be issued. Free to bring a guest for your comfort. And the auction has been pushed up. To tonight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She hung up.

  “We’ll be there.” He snatched the invitation and slipped it into his jacket pocket. “Wherever you’re going on this, I’m going.”

  “You’ve already done more than enough.”

  She couldn’t ask him to risk his life further. He’d almost been killed this morning. Endangering herself was part of her job, but this wasn’t his problem.

  “I’m happy to see you’re done using me and ready to toss me aside so quickly, but since this auction is taking place in person, you’ll need a Reznikov with you.”

  He was right about the latter part, but the pigheaded gleam in his eye warned her not to debate the former.

  For now.

  Chapter 11

  Northern Virginia

  8:48 a.m. EDT

  Cole followed Maddox on his Ninja.

  Un-freaking-believable. After getting what she wanted, she had tried to dump him on the curb like a bag of trash. Insult to injury.

  The only thing more unbelievable was the big-ass truck she was driving.

  They exited the George Washington Memorial Parkway and hit a service road. A quarter mile through an isolated area along the Potomac River, a gated compound came into view. By the time they drove past a sign that read Helios Importing and Exporting, Cole was ready to spit battery acid.

  Maddox stopped beside a stone gatehouse the size of a Metro station booth, perched in front of the gated compound. He idled behind her, taking in the perimeter. Nothing drew unwanted attention—no guard towers, no razor wire atop the ten-foot brick fence. Smart.

  Yet odd. This wasn’t the massive, in-your-face, overt CIA complex at Langley.

  Maddox rolled down the tinted window of her Toyota Tundra and hiked a thumb back at him as she spoke to a guard in plain clothes. He was definitely packing heat.

  The guy threw a quick glance at Cole and gave her a nod. She swiped a badge or card on an identification reader and punched in a PIN. The solid black gate slid open. From the thickness, Cole gathered it was armored.

  She drove in at a snail’s pace and he trailed behind. Six-foot concrete barriers with reinforced rebar edged the path for the first four hundred yards. A posted sign warned against exceeding thirty-five miles per hour.

  Twelve-inch-diameter shiny silver disks dotted the road in a familiar pattern. Those were retractable pneumatic bollards—electrohydraulic stainless-steel pillars—that’d pop up from the ground if triggered by high-speed velocity. Or, he guessed, a security lockdown protocol. Enough of them could stop a tank. And there were a buttload.

  Trees shrouded the road after the barriers—giant sycamores, sweeping oaks, dense willows, and a bunch of others. The drive in under the thick canopy of greenery was quite idyllic.

  He knew this location—or about it anyway. This had been the planned site for a swanky housing complex. He’d been impressed as hell by the online renderings as a teenager with a budding love for architecture. Designed around a verdant park, the compound had been intended as the quintessential suburban community, with necessities at residents’ fingertips. The project lost funding and someone anonymous scooped it up a few years after 9/11.

  Around the bend on the asphalt path sat a large building, shaped like a giant gray box with massive stone columns. Down the road behind it was a smaller-sized hangar. Trees broke up the parking lot in front of the gray building, giving it a helter-skelter look. The limited aerial exposure made the setup a covert agent’s wet dream.

  He followed her to the far end of the lot and parked next to her. As he removed his helmet, tucking it under his arm, she climbed out of her truck.

  “Never figured you for a truck gal.”

  “I’m not. That’s mine.” She pointed to a red Hyundai SUV. “It didn’t start. I think it’s my alternator, but I haven’t had a chance to deal with it. This”—she gestured to the pickup—“belongs to Knox. He’s deployed.”

  “Are you sure your boyfriend won’t mind you driving his wheels?”

  She stepped up close, a tease of a smile on her full lips. “Knox is better than a boyfriend. More reliable too. He’s the deputy here, like a brother to me. And I’m sure he won’t mind.”

  Something in her silken tone, the gleam in her eyes as she talked about the dude had Cole disliking Knox no matter what the nature of their relationship.

  “You can’t bring your cell phone inside.” She held out her hand. “Well, you could, but you’d have to leave it at the security desk. The elevators won’t work if an unauthorized cell is detected. Also, no weapons allowed for you.”

  Narrowing his eyes, the questions in his head mounted. He put his phone, knives, and gun in
his backpack and handed it over but hung on to his helmet.

  “Bruiser beads too.”

  After he proffered his necklace, she tossed it in her car and strode off at a clipped pace.

  “Care to explain?” He swept an arm at the compound, strolling beside her.

  “What?”

  “This isn’t Langley, baby.”

  Her eyes cut to him. “I hate it when you call me baby.”

  Still? Good. “Yeah, I remember. Baby.”

  She looked straight ahead and kept walking. Hips swaying in a pair of painted-on jeans, she wore a sexy V-neck that spelled all woman, despite the boots made for stomping in heads and a lightweight jacket covering her weapon. Maddox packing heat still boggled his mind. And from the bulge, hers was bigger than his. Go figure.

  He snatched her arm, forcing her to a jerky stop. “Explain, or I don’t go in.”

  “Technically, I’m not CIA anymore. I’m this.” She pointed a finger at the gray building. “We’re an off-book outfit designed to do what other agencies can’t and to give plausible deniability to higher-ups.”

  That was about as clear as if she’d spoken in Tagalog. “What do you do here?”

  “I take care of problems.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “What exactly is this?” He pitched a thumb at the building.

  “Let’s go inside. I called my boss in the car to tell him I was bringing you in. Sign the NDAs, then we’ll talk. Okay?”

  Not his first rodeo with a nondisclosure agreement, but this was not okay. “Who in the hell are you, Maddox? What’ve you become?”

  Squaring her shoulders, she gave him the iciest look he’d ever seen from her. “I could ask you the same.”

  Touché. If that’s how she wanted it, he could play this game. “All right, Miss Secret Agent, lead the way.” He dropped his hand from her arm.

  “In the CIA, MI6, this”—she gestured to the building again as they headed toward it—“we’re officers. It’s a common mistake. Agents are foreign assets for us. Unless we’re talking about the FBI or DEA.”

  “I’m glad we cleared that up,” he quipped, following her to the front door.

  Inside, Maddox swiped her badge along an automatic turnstile, opening the retractable barrier flaps while a metal detector screeched as Cole passed under the rectangular arch.

  “His helmet must’ve set off the alarm,” Maddox said to two more plainclothes guards. “He’s clean.”

  “Then your guest is cleared, Kinkade,” said one of the guards.

  “Thanks.” She waved as they headed for an elevator.

  Security sat behind an elegant, curved white marble desk veined with gold and grayish blue. The floors and walls were dark concrete polished to mirror perfection. Pretty sweet.

  Crossing the lobby, her gaze floated upward. He followed her look to a balcony filled with rows of shelving units. As he scanned the second floor, the base of his skull tingled, his shoulders drawing tight.

  At a biometric reader mounted on the wall, she lined her eye up with the ocular identifier. After an iris scan, the elevator doors opened.

  This level of security was the kind he encountered at billion-dollar companies safeguarding proprietary rights against corporate espionage.

  “A crazy budget paid for this. You guys must be rolling in government dough.”

  “The spare-no-expense budget that created this agency and facility came as a response to the Patriot and Bioterrorism Preparedness Acts after 9/11. Over the last few years, funding has dried up. We still have enough to stay operational and pay for our topside security contractors.” She nodded to the plainclothes guards. “They don’t have access to the facility below.”

  “Below?” He followed her into the elevator.

  She hit the button for the sixth floor, and the doors closed. Green lasers scanned them—for listening devices and unauthorized signal waves, at his best guess—and then the elevator lowered in a mad-money-smooth motion.

  Into a sub-facility. Underground.

  Now, he was really impressed. Restricting access for topside security was also the type of smart recommendation he’d make to someone dealing with sensitive information.

  “Working here, I’m surprised you don’t live in a fortress,” he said.

  “Or perhaps a gilded tower fit for a princess?”

  “Nope. You killed my fairy-tale illusions of you a long time ago.” Her gaze cut to the doors, and he decided to finish his point. “Only took me twenty seconds to break in.”

  “When did B&E become your hobby?”

  “Since I started working as a consultant for Rubicon Security.”

  She eyed him hard. “You used illegal off-market tech to get into my place, didn’t you?”

  He shrugged. “Are you going to dime me out? I know it’s not beneath you.”

  “I never would’ve figured you for that kind of work,” she said casually, ignoring the low blow. “Doesn’t sound like you.”

  “Ditto, baby.”

  She rolled her eyes. He loved getting under her skin, even if it wasn’t the way he craved.

  “After the auction, do you plan to pull a disappearing act? Go back to playing dead?”

  The doors opened, and she marched off.

  Catching up to her, he said, “Let’s get something straight. You resurrected me, to use me for your job. And after you roped me in, I got shot. I took a bullet. Playing this game with the CIA—or whatever the hell you are now—isn’t on my bucket list.”

  She went straight as a lightning rod, picking up the pace. “The bullet grazed you.”

  “Grazed?” As if it’d been a scratch. A freaking bullet put a hole in his arm!

  “It’s a flesh wound,” she said with frigid nonchalance, but her eyes snapped with fire. “Would you like me to kiss your boo-boo and help make it better?”

  “Listen, you can kiss my—”

  “Fine. You win the poor-me award. Should we have your trophy engraved?”

  As infuriating as she was and as livid as he was, damn if this new ball-breaker side to her didn’t turn him on like a floodlight. “Are you kidding—”

  “Shit happens.”

  Her teasing tone tickled and goaded him at the same time.

  “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” she said. “And I’m not talking about the playing possum kind, where you let your fiancée think you’re dead. The only easy day was yesterday. So suck it up, baby.”

  A nice guy would’ve let her have the win, but standing in super-spook central, he wasn’t inclined to concede an inch. “You weren’t my fiancée. I never proposed.”

  She stopped so violently, it was as if she’d plowed into a wall. She whirled on him. A thousand emotions flashed in her eyes, condensing to one that ripped a hole in his gut.

  They’d talked about marriage, made plans for a future. He’d had every intention of hitching himself to her until death, the kind that’d actually put him in a casket, but he’d never popped the question. Never gotten her a ring.

  “You’re right.” Her voice turned soft as cotton, an unearthly composure falling over her. “I wasn’t as important as a wife or a fiancée. You would’ve come back for one of those.”

  He was officially an asshole. He reached for her, but she stepped away. His gut burned.

  She was unreadable. Only her eyes telegraphed scathing pain before hardening to steel.

  “Maddox,” said someone, drawing both their gazes.

  A woman with a cello-shaped figure and bright eyes that screamed on high alert stood posted outside a conference room, its glass walls tinted an opaque gray. She ducked her head inside the room. Then a guy in his late forties, maybe early fifties, waltzed out. Despite the snazzy suit, he didn’t look like a desk guy. He had the sharp presence of someone used to being in the thick of the acti
on.

  “Thanks, Janet.” He patted the woman’s shoulder, and she left. “I’m Director Bruce Sanborn, Mr. Matthews. Or would you prefer Mr. Reznikov?” He extended a hand.

  “Cole works.” Tightening his grip on his helmet, he stuffed his other hand in his pocket.

  “We appreciate your assistance, Cole.” The guy lowered his hand. “This is time-sensitive and of the greatest importance. You’ll be read into mission details, but there are nondisclos—”

  “I’m up to speed about the NDAs.”

  “You don’t mince words and you don’t waste time.” Maddox’s boss flashed a smile bright as a bare bulb and just as empty. “You’ll fit right in.”

  Cole tugged on a cold, tight grin. “Trust me, Mr. Sanborn, I won’t.”

  “Simply Sanborn is fine.”

  “Before I help you people any further, I need to know—are you responsible for the Russians finding out I’m alive?”

  The coincidence stank of a setup. Maddox also stared at her boss as if keen for an answer.

  Sanborn wiped the smile from his face. His demeanor relaxed, gaze unwavering. “We don’t have the luxury of living in a black-and-white world with binary simplicity. It’s gray. Our job boils down to what’s necessary to safeguard this nation. Without apology. But no. We didn’t orchestrate Russian interference. You’re too important. You’re our only way into this auction, and it would’ve been impossible to ensure your safety. Okay?”

  The point-blank spiel wasn’t what Cole had expected from the poster boy for Spies R Us, but no tells of lying pinged in him. Not the faintest worrisome niggle in his gut. In fact, Sanborn’s stark honesty was a bit unnerving. Cole nodded his satisfaction with the response.

  “Would you wait in the conference room while I speak with Maddox in private?”

  Cole glanced at her, longing to apologize. Not as if he’d muster the words in front of the slick operator in the suit, but her gaze roamed everywhere except to him.

  Swearing under his breath in Russian, he pushed into the conference room.

  * * *

  Maddox steeled herself, refusing to let Cole mess with her head. Or her heart.