Black List: HOT Heroes for Hire: Mercenaries: A Black’s Bandits Novel

by Lynn Raye Harris

  “Jace, seriously? I still have a job, you know. And I have files to go over this afternoon. Barrington’s is going to fire me if you people keep interfering in my life.”

  “I’m sorry, babe, but it’s important. It shouldn’t take too long. Colt can stay with Kitty. I’ve watched him feed stray cats in Rome and Greece, and on the kind of shit details in remote villages that you wouldn’t believe. He likes cats and they like him.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” she muttered, and his balls tightened at the word fuck coming from her mouth.

  She didn’t curse much so it was sort of shocking when she did. Like hearing a Sunday school teacher say filthy things. It was kind of a turn on, to be honest.

  Not now.

  “Great,” she said, oblivious to his train of thought. “Call Colt—but if Kitty doesn’t like him, I’m not leaving her with him.”

  “Fair enough.”

  They returned to the building he’d taken her to the first time. Maddy sat quietly in Jace’s car as they drove through the wet streets. Kitty had of course loved Colt. And he’d loved her. Jace hadn’t been lying about the guy liking cats. He’d come in, promptly laid on the floor, and let Kitty sniff him from head to toe.

  Dammit, she didn’t want to like these guys. But she did.

  Their first meeting in Russia not withstanding.

  Jace drove into the garage and found a slot. They went to a different elevator than before, and they didn’t go to the fourth floor. He pressed the button for the fifth and then turned to her.

  “Where we’re going this time is very secure. You’re cleared to enter—or should be—but don’t be surprised if it takes a little time to get in, okay?”

  “Okay.” She was still thinking about what he’d said to her earlier. About wanting to be deep inside her. She was mad at him, but she wanted it too. Badly. Her body was twitchy when he was near, her skin burned, and her senses were achingly heightened. One kiss and she’d go off like a Roman candle.

  She’d protested about him staying in her house, but it wasn’t because she didn’t want him there. She wanted him there too much, which scared her. Jace Kaiser was hotter than an inferno, and she didn’t know if she was going to get burned. The longer he stayed, the more likely she thought it was.

  The freight elevator chugged upward and rocked to a stop. The doors opened into a plain hallway.

  Jace led the way to another door, stopping to look up at a monitor perched over the entry. A moment later, a disembodied voice broke the silence. Maddy nearly jumped out of her skin.

  “You’re cleared to enter, Mr. Kaiser.”

  “And Dr. Cole?”

  “Yes. Scan her palm, please.”

  Maddy took a step back as Jace turned to her. “Standard procedure, Maddy. Just need you to come over here and put your hand where I tell you.”

  She went to his side and waited. He didn’t tell her where to put her hand though. Instead, he took her hand in his, big palm covering the back, and gently lifted her arm to place her palm and fingers on the wall beside the door. Her breath shortened as he pressed her hand beneath his.

  “Did anything happen?” she asked as they waited.

  “They’re checking your prints. Just another second.”

  “Why didn’t they check yours?”

  He glanced up at the monitor. “Retinal scan.”

  The door clicked open. Jace let her go and stepped through, turning to motion her inside. She halted as she entered the room. It was—wow, it was like a movie set or something. Banks of computers, giant screens ringing the walls, people sitting at the computers or standing and conferring with each other.

  It was like the scenes at the CIA in Covert Affairs, with people going about top secret business while the world outside had no idea. It felt like she’d stepped through the wardrobe to Narnia, if Narnia was filled with spies and covert ops centers.

  “Welcome to Black Defense International, Dr. Cole.”

  Maddy jerked her gaze to where the voice emanated. It was Ian, standing with legs spread and arms crossed, observing her. He was wearing gray trousers and a button-down Oxford with the sleeves rolled partway up. Not for the first time, she thought that he was a striking man—and a scary one.

  “Thank you. I think.”

  “If you’d like to follow me, I want to show you something.”

  Maddy didn’t think she had much choice as he turned and walked away. She glanced at Jace. He nodded. “I’m going too.”

  She didn’t know why, but she felt better hearing that. She followed Ian, trying not to stare at the people who barely spared her a glance. The giant screens were interesting, but she realized they didn’t actually show anything other than a world map that circled the room. There were no dots, no words, nothing. What was the point if there was nothing on them?

  Ian opened the door to a conference room and held it while she walked inside. When she turned, Jace was there. He went over to the table and held out a chair for her, then took a seat beside her. Ian closed the door and walked over to join them.

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he said as he powered up a computer on the table in front of him.

  “I didn’t think I had a choice.”

  He chuckled. “You always have a choice, Dr. Cole. Some choices are wrong, but we attempt to persuade you of the error.”

  “But then you do what you want anyway, right?”

  He speared her with a piercing gaze. “Sometimes.” He tapped at the computer and a video flared to life on the television at one end of the room.

  “That’s me.”

  “Yes,” he said. In it, she was walking down the hallway toward her room at Mr. Sokolov’s. It had to have been when she was going for the batteries, because she didn’t have anything with her and Sergey wasn’t leading the way.

  “Please don’t tell me he was recording in my room too.”

  “No. Sokolov has cameras in the common areas and the hallways. He’s not a man who trusts people.”

  “And why would he? With that kind of money, somebody probably always wants a piece of you.” She’d met a lot of rich people and that was always the way of it. Some of them were jerks and she didn’t feel sorry for them. Some, however, were not. She suspected Sokolov was probably one of the jerks though.

  “Ah, here we go,” Ian said.

  Maddy had just reached her room when the maid appeared. But the maid’s back was to the camera while Maddy was head on.

  Ian zoomed in as much as possible, but the maid’s face never made it into the frame. Just the back of her head and then a partial profile when she turned toward Maddy at the door. “The maid goes inside the room after you enter yours. But she emerges from your room after the shooting, and she never turns toward the camera. She disappears into one of the other rooms, and that’s the last we see of her. She doesn’t appear on any other cameras, either in the house or on the grounds.”

  “I don’t understand what you want from me then. I told you she didn’t look like me at all. If the picture you showed me was correct, this woman didn’t look like that. She was shorter than me. Heavier-set, and she had short hair and brown eyes. I remember because she was wearing dark eyeshadow, very elaborately done, and I was jealous of the smokey eye she pulled off. I’d look like a raccoon if I tried it.”

  “Tell me what else you remember about her.”

  Maddy frowned. “She was friendly enough, but it wasn’t genuine. Just a job thing, I figured. Be nice to the guests. She said she was turning down the rooms. That was it.”

  “She wasn’t carrying anything?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “Any distinguishing features?”

  “No… but she had a tattoo.” Maddy swept her fingers from her elbow to her wrist. “Here. I didn’t get a good look at it, but it looked like a mermaid, though there could have been more to it than that.”

  “A mermaid,” Ian said.

  “Describe the mermaid, Maddy.” It was Jace this time.
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  Her gaze darted between them for a second. “I… I mean it was ornate, but done in black and gray. The mermaid had a trident in her hands, I think, and, um, hair that might have been tentacles. I only saw a flash of it, but it was striking.”

  Jace took her hand in his. She didn’t realize how cold she was until the heat of his fingers sizzled into her. When had she gotten cold?

  “Maddy. Jesus, honey. Why didn’t you mention that before?”

  “I… You didn’t ask. With everything else that day, it didn’t seem important. Not after you showed me the picture and the maid didn’t look anything like that. You didn’t ask for anything distinguishing, and quite frankly I was overwhelmed by the two of you.”

  Jace turned to Ian. “Do you think it’s her?”

  Ian was frowning hard, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. “I think it’s possible. She’s an operative, Jace. She knows how to run a con.”

  “Wait,” Maddy said even as her temples began to throb. “What do you mean you think it’s her? The maid is supposed to be the woman who looks like me? I’m confused.”

  Jace hadn’t let her go. His touch warmed her. Made glowy lights flicker inside. “Yes, we think it could be. She looked like you because she intended to look like you. Or she really does look like you but she donned a disguise for the maid.”

  “Did she have an accent? Anything else you remember?” Ian fired the questions at her and she thought hard about that day.

  “Her Russian sounded like a native speaker. Not that I’m an expert, but I’d say Central Russian. She wasn’t from the north or the south. Her voice was distinctive though.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “She was a woman, but if you spoke to her on a phone you might think she was an adolescent. Her voice was… girlish.”

  Ian leaned forward. “Interesting. Now tell me what you hear when I speak Russian.”

  Maddy frowned as she processed the words. “You sound native to me too. I don’t hear an American accent. Central Russian, I’d say.”

  “What about Jace?”

  She turned to look at him. He didn’t speak to her, but he didn’t need to. They’d conversed quite a bit in Russian. “He has the barest of accents every once in a while. Traces of American, as if he didn’t learn to speak the language until he was a little older. Like me.”

  Jace lifted an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth quirked in the ghost of a grin. “It’s true. I didn’t learn a word of Russian until I was ten.” He jerked his head at Ian. “I don’t think he learned a word of it until he was seventeen. Bastard.”

  “Sorry, kid. I’m talented at languages. Anyway, you hear that Jace has a slight accent but didn’t hear one from Calypso. Which means she’s either Russian or she’s exceptionally good at language.” He turned and tapped the computer. A photo appeared. The one he’d shown her before. The one they’d thought was her.

  There were a couple of other photos too, but they seemed different to Maddy. Different women.

  “Study them, Dr. Cole. Tell me if you see any commonalities.”

  She stood and went over to be closer to the screen. There were four photos. A fifth appeared and she gasped. It was her. She whirled. “Not funny.”

  “Necessary.”

  She turned back, darting between her photo and the one they’d shown her the first time she’d come to this place. “The hair is very similar. You can’t really tell how tall she is, but the build is similar too. Not heavy like the maid. I wish you had the maid. I’d love to compare her with this one.”

  “We do too. What about the others?”

  “They’re blurrier, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  She studied them. They were different than the one that looked like her. But the more she studied them, the more familiar the faces seemed. Which probably just meant she was staring at them too much.

  Familiar. Creepy.

  She remembered thinking those words when she’d first seen the photo of the woman who was supposed to be her a few days ago. She peered at that one again. At the expression on the woman’s face. Cool, haughty. Superior.

  The maid had looked at her with that same superior gleam, but was that enough to say they were the same person?

  She turned away from the screen. “I don’t know. I think there’s a similarity of expression. But that’s not enough to damn anyone, is it?”

  “Nope, but it was worth a try.” The screen blacked out. “Do you think you could describe the maid to a sketch artist?”

  She glanced at Jace for support. It hit her how much she trusted him in that moment. He gave her a nod, a firm look, and she turned to Ian again. “I can do that.”

  He came over to where she stood. “Thank you, Dr. Cole. I know this is rough for you. I know it doesn’t make sense. But it’s important. If that maid is who we think she is—well, you’re the only person we’ve found who can identify her.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jace stayed with Maddy while she described the maid to the sketch artist. The portrait that emerged prickled a memory, but Calypso was nobody he could pinpoint. It was more that she had an everywoman look. A valuable skill for an assassin.

  The tattoo was the interesting part. Maddy hadn’t seen enough detail to really create a portrait of the ink work, but knowing they were looking for a woman with that particular art in that particular place was more helpful than all the grainy photos and potential sightings in the world.

  Add in the girlish voice—though Calypso could have been putting the voice on as well—and they had enough information to search for her. It was a huge coup—and they had Maddy to thank for it.

  Except that information also put her in danger, which he didn’t like at all. While Maddy continued to refine the portrait with the artist, Jace stepped out of the room and went to find Ian.

  Ian was in the ops center, viewing a heat map for Southeast Asia. They had a small cell there, operating in the murky world of human trafficking and arms deals. Trying to dismantle the local organizations and sow discord whenever possible.

  The map had been carefully blank when Maddy walked through earlier, but now it was alive with activity. It would go dark again when she emerged from the conference room.

  Ian looked up as he approached. It was hard to tell what Ian was thinking most of the time, but this time he jerked a nod, as if pleased with something. Then he stood and motioned for Jace to follow him to his office. Once inside the glass walls, they could observe the ops center but talk in private.

  Ian went over to his desk and shuffled some things around, studying whatever intelligence had been dropped off recently. “You’ve handled her well,” he said. “Good work.”

  Annoyance pricked him. “I wasn’t handling her, boss.”

  Ian’s gaze lifted. “No, maybe not. But your instincts were good and it amounts to the same thing.”

  “Her information is game-changing.”

  “It is. Going to suggest something to you, Jace. You aren’t going to like it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Walk away. Let Colt and Ty handle her security. If Calypso is Russian, and from central Russia at that, you’re the best equipped to hunt her down.”

  He considered it. He really did. Because he was a warrior and had been his whole life. From the moment his parents turned his world upside down to right this minute, he’d been immersed in the world of secrets and spies. He didn’t know how to exist any other way. “What makes you think staying by Maddy’s side isn’t the best way to hunt Calypso?”

  “Oh, it probably is. But you’re too involved. Pull back, let them guard her, and you stay on the perimeter, observing. Leaves you free to hunt. If you’re concentrating all your brain power on this, you might even find Calypso before she makes a move.”

  Now that was a seductive idea. Find the assassin before she made a move. Protect Maddy from afar. It wasn’t what he’d promised her though. And something about the idea of leaving her made his gut churn.
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  “Maddy trusts me. And I promised I’d be there for her.”

  “Your life is dangerous. You’re pulling her into your orbit. Is that what you really want?”

  Anger flooded him. And doubt. “Are you telling me nobody else around here leads a dangerous life? That having Colt and Ty there with her is somehow safer than having me there? What the fuck, Ian?”

  Ian’s jaw hardened. His voice came out in a low growl. “You know your life is more dangerous than most—Nikolai.”

  Pain gripped his heart in a tight fist. “That’s not my name. Not anymore.”

  “Maybe not, but there are those who haven’t forgotten that man. Those who would love nothing better than to find him and make an example of him. And if they do find him? They won’t spare an innocent art historian just because she’s sweet and thinks the man she’s with is somebody else entirely.”

  Jace wanted to break something. Always, always, the life he hadn’t chosen intruded on the life he wanted. It was why he never got involved. Why he stayed aloof and disconnected. That had worked for years. Until Maddy Cole. Never before had he wanted to be a normal man as much as he did now.

  But he never would be. That was the problem. His life was too unpredictable for a woman like Maddy. If he told her the truth about himself, what then? His parents’ crimes were an easy Google search away. They’d been infamous spies, and they’d been deported in exchange for several American spies that the Russians were holding. He and Natasha had been stripped of their citizenship and sent packing too. At the ages of ten and four.

  Goddamn. He didn’t like it, but it was the right thing to do. For Maddy. He needed to rip off the bandage and move on. “I’ll go, but only if you move her to a safe house.”

  “You know our best hope of finding Calypso is to let her come after Dr. Cole.”

  “Yes, but you don’t need Maddy for it to happen. Send an asset to impersonate her. I’ll stay and watch for signs of Calypso.”

  Ian huffed a breath. “Fine. I’ve already put a lot of resources on her when we aren’t even sure Calpyso is out there, but I’ll add another. It’ll take me a day or so to get someone here who can do it though.”