by Kylie Brant
His fist throbbed with a satisfying ache. Sam flexed his fingers and couldn't summon an ounce of regret. "She's my thief. And there's nothing common about her." He turned to exit the room, his strides eating up the area. Pausing at the door, he looked back over his shoulder. The other man had sunk onto the couch with his head tipped back.
"Oh, and Miles?" He waited for the man's gaze to meet his, then bared his teeth. "I think we both know what you can do with your report."
* * *
Chapter 13
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"I wish you'd relax. Nothing will go wrong." Juliette had to lean over to speak right into Sam's ear. Conversation was difficult over the noise of the unmarked helicopter's rotors.
He slid her a glance, which was as much attention as she'd gotten from him for the past thirty-six hours. "If there's one thing I've learned from these operations, it's that anything can go wrong, and does."
The truth in his statement was hard to refute. And her own experiences would back it up. She tried to plan for every contingency before she went on a job, but unexpected complications could arise. A guard could vary his routine; equipment could malfunction; an escape route could be blocked. But those were eventualities that could be overcome. It was almost impossible to predict this upcoming meeting with Oppenheimer.
A tattoo of anticipation was beating in her veins.
The man at her side had made no secret of his vehement disapproval of this plan. But when Miles, sporting a swollen nose and surly attitude, had announced that he'd received approval for it, there was little Sam could do but grimly join in mapping out the details.
The speed with which it was happening was dizzying. Before she'd met Sam, before he'd set her schedule awry, she'd thought she had another two months to gradually escalate the ruination of Oppenheimer.
Any disappointment she felt that her plans had taken such an abrupt detour was tempered by the realization that she was finally going to confront him. He'd know who'd been targeting him all these years, and why. And she'd stand before him secure in the knowledge that despite the fact that he'd never be held responsible for her mother's death, he would lose it all. Perhaps not completely by her hands, but it would be enough. It had to be enough.
"Undo your shirt." The words had her gaze whipping to Sam's. But there was nothing suggestive in his eyes. They were still flat, hard and more than a little condemning. ' T want to wire you so I can keep track of what's going on between you and Oppenheimer while I'm taking a look around."
"I'll probably be searched," she objected, even as her hands went to the first button.
"At the very least," he agreed tersely. "But they won't find this." As she unfastened her shirt he reached in to withdraw something from his pack. Without preamble he pushed her hands aside and pulled down one of her bra straps.
Shock held her rigid. But again there was nothing in the least loverlike in his touch. He slipped his fingers inside the top of her bra and attached a miniscule object close, very close, to her nipple. Unlike his completely impersonal touch, her own body was reacting. Her breast tingled where his knuckles rubbed against it, the nipple drawing up into a hard, tight knot.
Embarrassed by her involuntary response, especially in the face of his lack of one, she blurted out, "What's it connected to?"
"It's a wireless transmitter. I'll be wearing the receiver. If you get into trouble, I'll know."
She went still. "You can't afford to divide your attention worrying about me. There's bound to be guards all over the place. We're both professionals. Let's agree that we each take care of ourselves."
"It's your game, Juliette." There was no mistaking the bitterness in his tone. "But we're playing it by my rules." He tested the security of the microphone, then, seemingly satisfied, withdrew his fingers. The skin he'd so recently warmed abruptly chilled. He couldn't have stated any more clearly his opposition to this plan. He didn't need to. She'd heard all his arguments earlier. And knowing that they were primarily fueled by worry for her made a heavy knot of guilt twist through her stomach.
She couldn't afford the feeling. She hadn't asked for his concern, she told herself shakily, fingers redoing her buttons. Had never wanted to elicit that kind of response from any man. Emotions were a sticky tangle best left to others. Focus on a goal demanded single-minded attention. Distraction could prove fatal. She didn't know what to do with his concern, in any case. She was unused to offering it. Even more unused to receiving it.
He diverted her then by going over instructions again. She pretended to listen, although he'd repeated them at least twenty times. The small flat radio she could use to communicate with the pilot was in one shoe, a case with a slim lethal blade was in the other. She didn't need him to point out that she was walking in less prepared and in more danger than she'd ever faced before. She knew that, and accepted the risk. Embraced it.
Her gaze went to the map lit up next to the pilot's controls. They were getting close. And the moment she'd been waiting for loomed. The outline of the island was below them, lights glowing in what had to be the house. There had been other homes on the island the one time she'd visited it, but there were no other lights to be seen. If Oppenheimer were using the island as a transition point for smuggled weapons, it would be imperative to have complete privacy. He'd have bought the other homeowners out.
Sam leaned over her, night-vision binoculars to his face. "No gate. No guards in the open, at least."
"He'll have them hidden somewhere," she replied certainly. "He won't have obeyed my Order to come alone. He'll feel secure surrounded by his own men." Memory of the phone call when she'd given him those orders still had the power to satisfy. She'd let him think she was calling for le petit voleur, passing on the thief's demands for this meeting. He'd been disbelieving, then, when she'd listed everything she'd stolen from him over the years, apoplectic. But she'd never doubted that he'd accede, at least to the meeting. After what she'd told him, he'd be too afraid not to.
The helicopter dropped altitude, circling the house in smaller and smaller arcs until it was directly before it. "How's this?" the pilot shouted over his shoulder.
Sam peered out, the binoculars still to his face. "Looks like as good a place as any." When he turned back to her, she was already reaching for the hook to the harness she wore around her chest. Taking it from her, he fastened it for her, then shoved the door open.
Juliette went to the doorway and crouched, balancing on the balls of her feet as she'd been instructed. Heights held no fear for her. She was used to rappelling up and down walls on cables thinner than the one that would hold her now. The thin leather gloves would protect her hands. Poised, she readied to jump.
"Wait."
Impatient, she turned her head. Sam leaned in, shoved his hand in her hair and pulled her face toward his. The kiss was hard, rough and over too quickly. When he drew away, there was a hollow place in her stomach, as if her freefall into space had already taken place.
"Be careful."
She read the words on his lips. "You, too," she whispered, forcing herself to turn away. Grasping the cable in both hands, she drew in a breath and then leaped. There was a euphoric sensation of flying, of soaring through the air. She began to slide down the cable, arms straining with effort. She could have allowed it to lower her down from the hook on her harness, but she was unwilling to give up even that one small bit of control.
The ground seemed to rush up at her, then her feet hit it, hard enough to have her jaw snapping shut with real force. She unsnapped the hook so it could be drawn back up into the helicopter. She never noticed when the chopper started moving away. Her attention was on the house twenty yards away from her, the door still firmly shut.
From the little she could detect in the dark, the villa hadn't changed much since the one time she'd seen it. The sculpted white Provencal stone gleamed in the night, and it sprawled across the area with a kind of majestic indolence. She didn't get more than a dozen steps before she heard the sound of
running footsteps behind her. Juliette wasn't surprised to feel rough hands haul her backward to a halt. Nor to feel the pressure of a cool metal barrel against her temple. "Monsieur Oppenheimer m'attend."
"C'est une femme!"
The guard's surprise at finding she was a woman, didn't have him lowering his gun. She was pushed unceremoniously up the marble steps, toward the polished mahogany door, which was swinging open.
Oppenheimer stood there, the light spilling behind him in an unholy glow. He was dressed totally in white, his shirt open part way to reveal a heavy gold chain around his throat. All the oxygen leeched from her lungs. She'd seen him over the years, of course. From a distance. Enough to note that the strong build and barrel chest had begun to soften, to run to fat. He'd grown bald, his brown hair thinned to a fringe that ran from ear to ear. An all too familiar ripple of revulsion was skating down her spine. Anxious to deny it, she straightened her shoulders. The time had long passed when she'd let this man terrify her. Or intimidate her.
The frown on his round face deepened to a scowl as Juliette was shoved to stop before him. "Ou est-il?"
"Where is whom?" she answered in English. By the arrested look on his face, she knew he'd recognized her voice from her earlier phone call. "I promised you a meeting with le petit voleur. And here I am."
There was silence for a moment as he considered her words. A moment in which she held her breath, wondering if he could possibly recognize her from ten years ago. Then he gave a snort, barked out an order to the man beside her. "Recherchez-la."
The guard ran his hands roughly over her form, chest to ankle. With a shake of his head, he stepped back.
"Do you expect me to believe that the most notorious thief on the continent is a woman?" The gold backing on his front tooth glinted as he grinned, a lascivious smile that summoned nasty splinters of memory. "And a very lovely woman, at that." His English had improved noticeably in the past decade, she observed. It was the only improvement of note.
She strolled past him, as if admiring the marble floors, the white sweeping staircase. "That's a rather chauvinistic attitude in this day and age, don't you think?"
His expression darkened at the derision in her tone. "Le petit voleur must be a coward to allow a woman to do his work for him. Or are you to distract me while he strikes elsewhere? Beautiful as you are,
I'm not so easily fooled." He gave another order and the guard hurried away.
Her stomach lurched as she thought of the danger to Sam. As the guards searched the island for the man Oppenheimer was convinced must have accompanied her, they could well run across him as he conducted his search. A shaft of fear arrowed through her at the thought of him being discovered.
"I came alone, didn't I, as we agreed? You did not. Which of us is the coward, I wonder?" She made no attempt to keep the mockery from her tone. It had the desired effect.
He grabbed her arm, fingers biting into the flesh. "You'll show me some respect."
Her gaze battled his, saw the same demon who had destroyed her life. Who had forged it with purpose. "You never earned that." Pulling away from him, she dug in her pocket, flipped the gold coin to him. "You didn't earn this either, did you? Or the chest full of ingots just like it. Must be hell for a man like you to have them and not let anyone know it. Moira can never wear that sapphire in your vault, either, can she? Someone would be bound to recognize it."
He stared at the coin in his hand, then at her. "Where did you get this?"
"You know where I got it." Amazingly, she was beginning to enjoy herself. Even in face of the threat, there was a hum of adrenaline in her veins. Senses were heightened. And all of them were focused on him. "The lockbox it was in is tucked away in the vault on your estate. The one that also houses a rather sizable porn collection." She allowed pity to tinge her tone, knowing he'd hate it. "I have to wonder what kind of man leaves a fiancée thirty years his junior sleeping alone while he entertains himself with skin flicks." Her shrug said that he had been judged, and found lacking.
"You're lying," he said flatly. "Nothing was missing from that vault."
"Really? Then how do you explain that?" she nodded at the coin clutched tightly in his hand. "How did I know what you kept inside it?" She watched the realization flicker across his face, chased by rage. "Nothing else was missing because I chose not to remove it. What you kept is only because I allowed it after I disabled your cameras." An ugly flush was crawling up his neck, mottling his face. ' T took care of the dogs. Circumvented the house alarm, entered the house and waited. I was right there when you and your irritable fiancée came in the door, do you know that? I waited for you to finish … whatever it was you did alone in the office." With a raise of her brows she intimated exactly what she thought that might have been. "And while you slept I entered your office, and your vault."
"You're lying." It was rage rather than logic that fueled his words. "That vault is totally secure."
"Nothing is secure from le petit voleur," she said, with more than a little arrogance. "I would have thought you'd realized that when I snatched the Moonfire. What a pity that you'll never hang it around your fiancée's throat right before she walks down that aisle. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans."
The wrath in his expression was familiar. And when his fist arced through the air, catching her on the cheekbone, the shattering pain that followed was all too familiar, as well.
Sam clutched the rock, using the giant stack of boulders to hide him from view. The water lapped around his waist as he shrugged out of the waterproof pack and opened it. He picked up the receiver, fit the earpiece to his ear. The earphones that would allow him to communicate with the pilot were placed around his neck. Right now his first concern was for Juliette. He adjusted the knob on the transmitter, then heard voices, as clearly as if they were coming from next to him. He listened for a moment, a fraction of tension seeping from his limbs. Oppenheimer didn't believe she was the thief who'd robbed him of his most prized possessions. He had no doubt that she'd take great satisfaction in convincing him otherwise.
He reached into the pack, pulled out some night-vision goggles and put them on. After surveying the area carefully, he pushed away from the rocks and waded to shore. Once on dry ground he sat down and exchanged his water shoes for a pair of sneakers. Then he began to make his way to the hulking building they'd spotted from the helicopter, the one hugging the shoreline. Although there was another dock on the opposite side of the island, with a large boat moored to it, this was the only other building on the island, with the exception of the villa. If he was going to find anything of significance, it would be in there.
Twice on his way toward it he had to take cover behind a dune, and wait until guards, singly or in pairs, covered the area armed with flashlights and automatics. Once a man walked right by him, so near he could have reached out and touched him. Sam had been ready to act with swift deadly force to take him out, but it hadn't been necessary. The man had passed by.
It took another five minutes to jog to the building. He didn't approach it right away. Instead, he circled it from a distance, spotting the men searching around it. Flattening himself between the dunes again, he reached for the earphones around his neck, spoke into the microphone. "Buzz them across the southwest corner of the island." He waited for the pilot to obey, watched the figures rush to the area beneath the path of the helicopter. Only when he'd assured himself that the two men at the building were headed in that same direction did he advance toward it.
Up close it appeared nothing more sinister than a boathouse, albeit a large one. A yacht the size of Oppenheimer's would never be able to dock at the large pier leading from the building, but a fairly good-size seaworthy ship would. Despite himself, he felt a spark of excitement, one he immediately tamped down. Even if Juliette's hunch paid off, it didn't excuse the risk they were taking. The danger she was deliberately placing herself in.
He was a man who knew the high price of honor. Of loyalty and devotion.
He'd operated by such a code all his life. He hadn't expected to discover that the thief who'd been targeting Oppenheimer for years operated according to her own code. More than money had motivated her. More than greed. Revenge wasn't a pretty emotion, nor a tame one. But it was one he could empathize with. When she'd recounted her story about her life with Oppenheimer, he'd felt a burn of rage unlike anything he'd ever experienced before. He knew what he'd be capable of if someone he loved was threatened. And despite his fear for her safety, he couldn't judge her for the thirst that drove her. The desire for revenge could be a cruel mistress. He just hoped it didn't prove to be a lethal one.
Stealthily, he flattened himself against the building, and slid along the side. A quick surveillance of the perimeter of the steel structure proved there were no windows. The only opening was the huge set of double sliding doors. He took out a metal wand, similar to the one Juliette had used on the estate, and checked the doors for security. He wasn't totally surprised to find none. The isolation of the island worked in Oppenheimer's favor. And there was no doubt that even if the island was breached, the guards with automatic weapons strapped to their chests were a powerful deterrent in their own right.
There was a heavy chain and padlock securing the doors shut. He was tempted to use the bolt cutter, but decided to expend the extra time and energy picking the lock. A guard could be forgiven for believing someone had been careless enough to leave the doors unlocked, but a cut chain would signal for sure that security had been breached.
With a pencil flashlight held between his teeth, he worked as quickly as he could, but he lacked Juliette's level of expertise. It took longer than it should have to open the padlock and slip inside.
The interior was vast, and dark as a cave. Sweeping the flashlight's slim beam around the area, he saw that the back of the space was stacked high with crates. The structure must have served to store a large boat at one time. Water sloshed beneath the walkways. But the back of the area rested on land. He was heading toward the area when he heard Juliette's voice in his ear, followed by an unmistakable sound.