by Elle James
Alex didn’t catch all the words, but she understood the context. Her ears perked, and she strained to hear the rest of the conversation while pretending to eat the boeuf Bourguignon on the plate in front of her. The meal was excellent, but she didn’t have much of an appetite.
For the first time in two years, people around her knew who she was. She felt vulnerable, like she had a target pinned to her front and back. She stared around the room, searching for anyone staring back. The only gaze she met was Daniel’s. Now that he knew who she was and what she’d done, she was even more determined to learn more about him.
At the moment, the conversation next to her was interesting enough to capture her attention, and she focused on what they were saying while trying not to be too obvious.
“Oui,” Bonhomme nodded. “I have heard the same. The Russians want us to pay for more gas than we are receiving.
The Italian nodded. “We need to address this in tomorrow’s session. I will not agree to the new pipeline if we are being robbed.”
Nothing had been said during that day’s summit session along this topic. The men agreed to bring it up in the next day’s meeting and changed the conversation to favorite vacation spots.
Alex tuned out for the remainder of the meal. When she could leave without being rude, she excused herself and left the banquet hall. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daniel push to his feet and take his leave of the people rising from his dinner table.
She was nervous about being alone with him in the room. Now that he knew everything, she had nothing to hide. All the Krav Maga training in the world didn’t make her feel any less vulnerable because Daniel was different. He wasn’t after her to kill her. He hadn’t tried to take her flash drive, even when she’d left it in front of him while she’d gotten ready for dinner.
He’d been there when she’d needed help, letting her stay in his room when someone had broken into hers.
And he hadn’t tried to take advantage of her sexually, like so many men had since she’d grown into her womanly shape.
She glanced around the banquet hall one more time, searching for those who might be watching her every move.
Baranovsky stood and held Natalya’s chair as she rose from the table. He said something in her ear and stepped back. She glanced across the room, her gaze meeting Alex’s. She raised a hand and waved.
Alex dipped her chin in acknowledgement.
Baranovsky looked up, his eyes narrowing to slits. He turned to Natalya and spoke, his expression intense, his lip curling back in a snarl.
Natalya responded, her lips tight. She hooked her hand through Baranovsky’s arm and led him toward the exit. Alex waited until they disappeared through the door before she made her way out. Even then, she paused at the exit and scanned the corridor. When she didn’t see Natalya or the Russians, she headed for the lobby and the bank of elevators.
She made it there without being waylaid by anyone. Once in a car with other guests, she got off on the third floor, looked around, then headed for the opposite stairwell from the one she’d used earlier. Two flights later, she hurried down the fifth floor corridor to Daniel’s door and raised her hand to knock.
He opened the door before she could tap it with her knuckles and stepped back to allow her to enter. “Any tails?”
She shook her head. “No. I had to wait for Natalya and Baranovsky to leave the banquet hall and give them time to get to the elevators before I could head that way.”
“Well, you’re here now. I’m going to jump in the shower,” Daniel said.
“Could I use your computer?” she asked.
He nodded. “Of course.” Daniel opened the laptop. The image of her as a child with her parents was still on the screen.
Alex froze, her gaze fixed on the monitor.
“You were a cute kid,” Daniel said softly. “You look like your mother. She was a beautiful woman.”
She reached out to touch the screen, her heart squeezing so hard it hurt. “I miss them.” Alex looked to Daniel. “Where did you get the photo? I don’t have anything from our lives together. It all burned to the ground with the house.”
“My…friend found it online.”
Alex turned to Daniel and frowned. “No way. My parents never posted anything online. Try again.”
“My friend has connections with a lot of government agencies and some not so reputable places,” he said.
“Who are you, really?” she asked. “And don’t tell me you’re a male escort. You’re not.”
He sighed. “You’re right. I’m not a male escort. However, I’ve learned that I could do the job if I need the money…and I have needed the money in the not so distant past.”
She tapped her toe, impatiently.
He blew out a deep breath. “Okay. I’m Dane Ryan. I’m working for a woman I haven’t met in person, only spoken to over the phone. She hired me because of my training.”
Alex studied the man. Dane Ryan seemed to fit him better than Daniel Rayne. It was a strong name worthy of a strong man. She liked it…she liked him, even if he had lied about who he was. The fact was, she’d lied, too. “What kind of training?” she asked.
“I’m a former Navy SEAL.” As he said the words, he stood taller and squared his shoulders. “Unfortunately, I was asked to leave because of a mission I performed based on orders from people in a higher paygrade than I was. Their bosses didn’t like the results, so they made me the sacrificial lamb.”
“What was the mission?” she asked.
“To take out a bad egg in Russia.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Assassination?”
“I like to think of it as a termination. The man tortured a number of Americans before killing them.”
“So they sent you as the judge, jury and executioner.”
He nodded.
“And they kicked you out for following orders?”
Again, he nodded.
Alex shook her head. “I took out a few people who killed others.” She looked away. “I didn’t like what I did, but I couldn’t let them do it to others. They did it for money. No emotions. No concern for anything but filling their bank accounts.”
He nodded. “I did what I had to do for my country.”
She lifted her chin. “I did what I had to do for my family. And I’m not done.”
“I’m not actually certain what my role is here now. My original assignment was to stop an assassination of one or more of the Russian delegates to make certain the agreement for phase two of the Nord Stream pipeline goes through.” His lips curled on the corners. “It seems I almost failed my first mission.”
Her lips twisted. “Because Petrov was stabbed while you were dealing with me.”
“Now it seems, my boss wants me to keep an eye on you. That you could be potentially more important than the Russians and the signing of the agreement.”
Alex frowned. “Why does she think I’m more important?”
He tipped his head toward her chest.
Her eyes widened. “The flash drive?”
“Yes. It appears someone wants it. If it’s important enough to kill for, they’ll be back to take it from you. Have you made a copy of it?”
She shook her head. “I tried, but it wouldn’t let me. I can’t do anything with the file because of the encryption. My parents kept other information on that disk, like bank accounts and contact names, and I was able to get to those, but not that one file.” She tilted her head to one side. “If my parents locked it with biometrics, is it possible to access it another way?”
“My new boss might have people who can crack the code. She said their intent was to turn it over to the CIA. Why not do that, now that you know that’s what they wanted?”
“I should,” Alex said. “I’m not getting anywhere on my own, and I don’t want to use members of the dark web to accomplish the task. That’s what bothers me—not knowing why the information is so important. I don’t want any organization to have it if it will cause a world w
ar or mass destruction.”
“What if it’s a cure for some horrible disease that the Russians have been holding out on?” Dane shook his head. “Think about it. I can get my boss to check with the CIA for a contact if you want to hand it off to them.”
Alex didn’t know what she wanted to do with the flash drive that she’d carried for the past two years. It was the last thing she possessed that had belonged to her parents, besides the passports that had been in the safe.
“You don’t have to decide now.” Dane took her hand in his and pulled her into his arms. “It’s enough to think about for a while.” He held her close without making her feel trapped. Instead, she felt warm, safe and…cherished. She hadn’t felt any of those things since her parents had passed. She stood in the circle of his arms for a long moment, inhaling his scent and savoring his strength. On her own for two years, she hadn’t had anyone she could lean on.
After a while, he tipped her chin up. “As much as I like holding you, I need a shower and we both need rest.” He kissed her forehead like he had earlier that day.
Alex’s pulse quickened. She lifted her chin and rose up on her toes, brushing his lips with hers. “Thank you.”
He chuckled. “I’ve never had a woman thank me for kissing her on her forehead. Other places, yes. But not on the forehead.”
Her cheeks heated. “For making me feel safe.”
He brushed a strand of her hair back behind her ear. “I’m here for you, and I want to help. I can’t promise to help you kill the person who put the hit on your parents. But I’ll do my best to keep you safe as long as I’m here.”
She hugged him around his waist, and then stood back. “You’d better get that shower. I want one after you.”
“You’re welcome to go first,” he said.
“No. I want to try one more time to get into that file. There has to be a password I haven’t considered.”
He waved a hand toward the laptop. “Have at it.” Then he disappeared into the bathroom. Shortly after he left her, Alex could hear the sound of the shower turning on.
Alex closed her eyes and inhaled the lingering scent of his cologne. Her pulse still hammered through her veins, and warmth coiled low in her belly. Dane stirred something inside her she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Desire.
She drew in a deep breath, willing her heartbeat to return to normal. Why did the man have such a strong effect on her? They barely knew each other, and they would be parting ways once the Energy Summit concluded. Unless she agreed to hand over the flash drive to the CIA. In that case, Dane might be her escort and protector until that task was complete. She might even insist they make the transfer in the States.
Whatever happened, her identity was known by someone who wanted something from her or wanted her dead before she could pass on the drive. For the past two years, she’d more or less played dead. Now that she was known to be alive and well, she was vulnerable.
Her first instinct was to disappear, fade into the dark and not come up until she knew for certain who had hired the mercenaries to kill her parents. She’d surface long enough to take him out, and then start over somewhere else.
Maybe she’d move to Montana or Colorado. Or live in an ex-pat community in Costa Rica or Guatemala. She’d dreamed of doing that once she’d completed her mission. She’d set up a house…alone. Before she’d met Dane, that dream had sounded idyllic.
Now? Not so much.
She’d put her life on hold, gotten blood on her hands and done things that would put her in jail in the States, if anyone could tie the actions back to her. She had no room in her life for anyone else. She’d have to be in hiding for a very long time no matter where she ended up.
A man like Dane would want to have the perfect home, wife and children. He was an honorable man who’d given his loyalty to his country.
And for what? To be kicked out of the career he’d trained so hard to master?
Alex shook the idea of a happily-ever-after with Dane from her thoughts. It would never happen. It couldn’t.
She sat at the desk, inserted the flash drive into the side of the computer and clicked on the icon that popped up. As usual, she had no problem getting into the personal information her parents had stored there. The bank accounts they’d set up with cash she’d ultimately moved to other accounts on the Cayman Islands. The file she couldn’t get to was labeled PAV. She’d thought for the longest that it was her father’s name abbreviated. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
When she clicked on the file she didn’t get the usual error. The file didn’t come up, but the computer’s cursor spun as if working, churning on something. The built-in camera light flashed on then off.
Her pulse picked up. Was the computer safe to use? Did someone have remote access to it? Had they just taken her picture?
The churning cursor blinked out, disappearing from the screen.
Alex moved her finger across the touchpad, trying to find the cursor.
The screen filled with what appeared to be a document. The words on the page didn’t make sense. Some were English, intermingled with letters and numbers.
The door to the bathroom opened behind her, and Dane walked out wearing shorts with a towel draped around his neck.
He crossed to where Alex sat in front of the laptop, her heart beating hard inside her chest.
“It opened,” she whispered, the enormity of what had just happened threatening to overwhelm her.
“What’s in it?” he asked, leaning over her shoulder.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
He stared at the screen for a few moments. “It looks like some kind of computer programming language.”
“That doesn’t help me much.”
“All the more reason to get it to someone who knows what it is,” Dane said.
“I need to hand it over to the CIA.” She looked up into Dane’s eyes. “Do you trust this boss of yours?”
“So far, she seems to care about the fate of the world. I can ask her to get you to the States to hand it over to the folks at Langley in Virginia. They’ll have the expertise to decipher the code. How did you get it to come up? Did you remember a password that worked?”
She shook her head. “I think the computer took my picture. The next thing I knew, the file opened.”
Dane nodded. “Biometrics. I bet it used facial recognition. Your parents must have used a photo of you to lock the file. Only you could open it.”
“Then I have to deliver this flash drive in person,” she said. “Otherwise, they won’t be able to access it or they’d have to spend a lot of time finding a workaround.”
“If you’re sure you want to hand it over, I’ll get in touch with my boss and have her set up the transfer at Langley.”
Alex stared at the gibberish on the screen. “This is what they wanted.”
“Or wanted to keep anyone else from getting their hands on,” Dane suggested.
She nodded. “I wonder what the code does.”
“When you hand it over to the CIA, you might not ever know.”
She sighed. “Unless I teach myself this computer language, I’ll never know anyway.” Alex squared her shoulders. “Set it up. I’ll hand it over on one condition.”
He frowned. “What condition?”
“That I’m allowed to go free.”
“Why wouldn’t you be allowed to go free?”
She turned toward him. “You and your boss know what I’ve done. In the States, that’s considered murder.”
“Only if someone presses charges. I doubt seriously anyone will press charges for the murder of mercenaries in a foreign country.”
“Still, I want it in writing that they’ll expunge my record. I don’t want to have it hanging over my head for the rest of my life.”
Dane nodded. “I’ll let the boss know.” He held out his hand. “Now, we need to get some sleep.”
She closed the file, ejected the flash drive, carried it to the nightstand on her
side of the bed and laid it on the wooden surface. “That little device got my parents killed.” Alex climbed into the bed and lay back, staring at the ceiling.
“No,” Dane said as he got in on the other side, “the person who wanted that device got your parents killed.”
She turned to face him, moving the pillows aside. “Have you ever wanted a reset of your life? To take yourself back to a time when there seemed to be nothing wrong with your world?”
He gave half a smile. “Yes and no. Things happen for a reason. If I hadn’t made my mark and been booted out of the Navy, I never would have met you.”
“And if my parents hadn’t been murdered, I don’t know where I’d be now.” She stared across at him. “I wouldn’t be lying next to a stranger, wishing I had the nerve to kiss him.”
He chuckled. “I promised I wouldn’t touch you unless you wanted me to.”
Her pulse raced through her veins, her blood getting hot and getting hotter. “You’ve already broken that promise twice by kissing me on my forehead.”
“I have, but I won’t go any further.”
“Unless I want it,” she concluded.
“Right.”
She met his gaze. “I want it.”
Chapter 9
His pulse racing, Striker stretched out across the bed, moved the barrier pillows, tossing them to the floor. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “It’s been a long time since someone held me close. I’d forgotten how good it feels.”
He reached out and pulled her into his arms. “I can hold you, if that’s all you want,” he said, fitting her body against his.
She rested her head on his shoulder. “Let’s start here,” she murmured. “Like I said, it’s been a long time.”
Striker brushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. “You have the most beautiful hair of anyone I’ve ever known.”
She smiled. “I got the thickness from my mother and the color from my father. My mother had brown hair. My father had jet black.”
He twirled a long strand around his finger. “Best of both,” he concluded, “and so soft.”