by Debra Webb
She drummed her fingertips impatiently on her knee.
He crossed the room again, forcing himself to sit down at the table. He could slow down and do this right. “First, I’m not a traitor.” He stopped right there as the emotion choked him. He didn’t know quite how to beg her forgiveness, to uproot the terrible seeds of doubts he’d planted. “The Army Criminal Investigations Command approached me just over two years ago.” Though he knew all deals were off, his voice cracked on exposing her to the black stain that had ended his career. “Before that last deployment. Equipment had gone missing. Locals claimed army personnel were helping move drug shipments. High-value targets disappeared without a trace. While that sounds logical with the honeycomb of hideouts in Afghanistan, no rumors or sightings were getting out. CID asked me to go undercover and appear amenable to cooperating with one particular drug lord. I did what was required of me, as always.”
She gasped, her eyes wide and sad. “The CID didn’t back you up?”
“That was before the treason charge.” He knew she was thinking about the lives lost on that last busted mission. “Cooperating with the drug lord was a test to earn the trust of the criminals CID wanted to net. What I didn’t realize at the time was that by passing that test I put you and Frankie in danger.” He hitched his shoulders against the impossible burden. “Smoothing the way for that drug shipment earned me a rare invitation to Hellfire, an elite circle of retired military personnel that CID had been trying to dismantle for more than five years.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “They named themselves after a missile?”
He nodded. “They’re cocky. Considering what they’ve gotten away with and how they’ve managed to line their pockets, they’ve earned the moniker. As a general willing to cross the line for personal gain, I was a shoo-in. Once I was in, my real goal was to identify the Hellfire leadership and gather evidence against them.”
“Which meant working with them in the short-term,” she said quietly.
“Yes.” He swallowed the lump of guilt in his throat. Good men had died for bad reasons that day. Undercover or not, he’d been ready to serve time as a penance. “And it eventually led to the treason charge.” He cracked his knuckles. “There was a bank account in the Caymans that would’ve made you blush.” His stilted laughter didn’t hold any humor. “Doing bad things for the right reasons is no excuse. I should’ve found another way.”
The CID special agent running his part of the operation assured him there hadn’t been another way, but he would carry those terrible memories forever. On his feet again, Frank paced to the door and back, his mind lost in that cursed patch of dirt and the acrid scents of burning fuel and explosives roiling through the desert air.
With both hands fisting helplessly at his sides, he forced himself to tell her the rest. “We figured out after that fiasco, I wasn’t the only CID recruit. Another team was tracking the drug shipment. Somehow Hellfire learned the shipment would be seized and used the opportunity to blame it on me.”
“Moving illegal drugs is a crime, yes. That doesn’t explain the treason charge.”
He rubbed one thumb hard into the palm of his other hand. “Hellfire scrubbed the op rather than risk exposure. As Hellfire’s newest member, I took the rap for the whole deal, letting the real traitors get away clean, their drug money gushing again like crude oil from a new well less than a week later.”
“Frank, if what you say is true, it wasn’t your fault.”
Of course it was. He looked down to find she’d moved too close, her hands holding his. He wasn’t worthy of her sympathy. Reluctantly, he shifted out of her reach. “The treason charge was manufactured just to ruin me, in case I was inclined to flip on Hellfire.”
“I didn’t want to believe you’d sold information about troop movements and weapons in Kabul, but who else could have leaked those facts?”
Only another general and his cronies, Frank kept to himself. As an analyst, she would’ve assessed and reported on the intel provided. That was the trouble. With Hellfire railroading him and manipulating the intel, the only possible verdict was guilty.
“I had to do something. Behind bars, I’d never get to the bottom of this, if they even let me live. My CID contact, Special Agent J.D. Torres, came to see me after the verdict and we devised a plan to fake my death. Once I escaped, I knew enough to keep gathering evidence against them without worrying that they’d go after my family.”
“And yet here we are, almost a year later.” She sank back into the chair.
“Yes.” His worst nightmare coming true in full color and in real time. “Based on what I learned during my brief time within Hellfire, I’ve been piecing parts of the puzzle together. I’ve learned how the drugs come into the country and I know the top three players in the group. I even managed to stop a drug shipment last month.”
“That’s progress, I guess. What did Torres have to say?”
He recognized that look. She was shifting gears, playing devil’s advocate. He was about to preempt that move. “Torres was the only person who knew about me. I reached out to him to turn in my latest report and let him know where I stashed Hellfire’s drugs for the CID to clean up. He didn’t respond. I discovered he died in a single-car wreck last month. He’d gone missing more than forty-eight hours before police found the car torched, just off his normal route to and from work. Taking that shipment managed to get another man killed and put you and Frankie in the crosshairs.”
“How can they possibly know you were responsible?”
“Process of elimination,” he replied. “I’m the only one who understands how the money and drugs move through their sick, private retirement fund. I can’t be sure when they learned I’m alive. They must have tortured Torres to discover how we stayed in contact.”
“They threatened Frankie and me to draw you out?” She closed her eyes, her fingers sliding the pendant of her necklace along the chain. “How did they tell you?”
“It was a private message on a social media account. They sent me a picture of you, then followed that with the kill order.” When she let loose a string of Italian curses for Hellfire, he couldn’t have agreed more. “I can’t quit now. If I don’t stop them, who knows how many more people will get hurt or die while they get richer?”
Her gaze was distant, thoughtful, as she resumed her place at the very edge of her chair. “I felt someone watching me in Chicago.”
“Yes,” he said with a nod. “I’ve been shadowing the man they put on you since you arrived this morning. I had to move fast before the sniper could set up the shot.”
“So you pulled me out of harm’s way.”
“It almost worked perfectly.” His heart had stopped when they’d forced her off the road. “I’m not sure why they ran you off the road, unless they wanted your death to look like an accident.”
“What about Frankie?”
The edge of panic in her voice slid as deep as a blade between his ribs. “I’m hoping this fiancé of hers can watch her back, but the sooner I wrap this up, the better for everyone.” Once he eliminated Hellfire and knew his girls were safe, he could think about what to do with the rest of his lonely life.
Sophia nodded, her face pinched as she laced her fingers together in her lap. There had been a time when they’d faced bad news hand in hand. He never should have kept any of this from her. “Is he a good man?”
She lifted her gaze to meet his, blinking as she tried to put his question into the proper context. “Aidan? He’s the best. Did you know he was a Colby investigator?”
“Yes. I did a background search on him.” While Frank respected Victoria Colby-Camp and her agency, this was his baby girl’s life on the line. “I sent him a death threat today.”
“You did what?”
“Well, I sent it to him, but it was aimed specifically at Frankie,” he clarified, r
ealizing too late he’d only made things worse. “I wanted them on alert. I couldn’t blurt out what was really going on. I needed them to react quickly, not ask questions.”
“Oh, Lord.” Her expressive eyes rolled to the ceiling. “Here I was, trying to figure out how to clue her in that you’re alive and that we might need her help.”
“We can’t do that. We can’t tell her anything.” Panic snapped and clawed at his heart. “The more she knows about me, the more danger she’s in.”
Sophia’s sound of frustration mimicked an unhappy grizzly bear. “If I don’t kill you before this is over, she will. Trust me on that.”
“I deserve it,” he said through another wave of anguish. “But if I don’t stop them—”
She held up a hand. “I can fill in the blank.” She massaged the lobes of her ears around her earrings. “The treason charge,” she began. “Did you knowingly send that team in Kabul to their deaths?”
That she could even think it of him stopped his heart more effectively than the drug he’d used to fake his death. Still, in light of everything, it was a fair question. “I did not.” It had been such a sharp edge he’d been walking and he thought he’d done everything possible to make sure only he would or could be injured. A tactic that left him with no allies when the plan backfired. He’d been too new, hadn’t known the real players within Hellfire or the full measure of their greed.
Now he did, and he needed to give his wife and daughter the best protection. “I know you don’t owe me anything, dolcezza. Not your understanding and certainly not your forgiveness.”
“Be quiet. I’m thinking of our next step.”
“Our?” he echoed, staring at her. “No way.”
“You need me,” she countered.
He did need her. Desperately. When this was over, maybe they could talk about just how badly he needed her. Assuming he lived through the fight Hellfire would present. “What I need most is to know you’re tucked away safely out of Hellfire’s reach.”
“Is there such a place?”
He didn’t say yes fast enough.
“Then we’ll do this together,” she declared. She stood, the ghost of a smile tipping her lush mouth.
“Absolutely not,” he said. He wanted to keep her as far from the chaos as possible. He’d often fantasized about a reunion when the coast was clear. Coming home to Sophia had always been the best part of fulfilling his military responsibilities. Someday this mess with Hellfire would be behind them and, if she gave him a chance, he’d never leave her again.
“Look where you’ve wound up working alone!” She switched to Italian, indulging in a fiery rant that called into question his intelligence and sanity. “I have contacts and resources. You need my help.”
“You think the two of us can do what the CID couldn’t?”
“Yes.” Her eyes glittered, daring him to contradict her. “As a team,” she said pointedly. “We were unstoppable. They have regulations and systems. We have a dead man with good intel and a reputable woman with excellent connections.”
He knew that look. In full protective mode, she wouldn’t back down, even if it was for her own good. He reconsidered his strategy. “Since we’re in Chicago,” he said, “why don’t we ask if you can work your connections from Victoria’s offices?” The Colby Agency could keep Sophia safe while he went after Hellfire personally.
“Just me?” she asked too sweetly.
Naturally she saw straight through him. “Standard protocol,” he said, defending the suggestion. “You in the office, me in the field.”
She tossed her head. “I will not let you out of my sight. Our daughter would never forgive me if something happened to you...again.”
“She already thinks I’m dead. I refuse to take the chance of making her an orphan for real. I don’t want her to know anything until this is done.”
She pinned him with a wicked glare. “Were you this melodramatic during official briefings?”
“The lives of my wife and daughter weren’t on the line in my official briefings,” he said, thoroughly exasperated with her insurmountable stubborn streak. “Haven’t you been listening to me?” He’d spent more than twenty years commanding troops, so how was it he had so much trouble with this one woman?
“I have been listening very closely. The only real point you’ve made is that you need my help.”
He scrubbed at the back of his neck. How could he have believed she would listen to reason? He needed help, yes, and he’d count her an excellent ally—from the safety of an office surrounded by armed experts. Putting her in the line of fire was taking an unforgivable chance. Not to mention how keeping her close would be torture. Already her familiar lily-and-sandalwood fragrance seeped into his system, giving him more comfort than he deserved. “You can help me—from a safe distance.”
“Frank, be reasonable. You need someone at your back.”
“Victoria would agree with me,” he countered. As arguments went, it was too weak and they both knew it.
Her gaze sharpened. Her keen mind was working through his protests to the crux of the problem. “You’re holding back a significant factor here. Who is it, Frank? Who’s at the top of Hellfire?”
Furious at himself more than anyone at how he’d been fooled and used, he studied the pattern in the carpeting. He met her gaze, at last. “Kelly Halloran is the top man.”
The blood drained from her face, turning her vibrant golden skin to ash. “Sit down,” he said, moving to catch her. She slumped to the edge of the couch, her shoulders hunching as if she could physically block the news. He understood her reaction.
“Why?” she whispered. She sucked in a breath, eased away from him and tried again. “We’ve known him forever. We know his children. His wife and I were once close friends.” She rubbed her hand over her heart. “They were at our wedding. They brought me flowers when Frankie was born. Our kids played together. He held me when I learned you were...dead.”
All the more reason Frank wanted to see that bastard go down. The few inches of space her retreat created left an icy chill on his skin. “This isn’t a quick, fly-by-night operation. It’s been developing for a long time. So far I haven’t figured out what pushed Halloran over the edge.”
She bit her lip. “You believe he’d willfully hurt our daughter?”
Frank nodded. “The man he is today? Yes. He’d give that order.” He waited for it to dawn on Sophia that their old friend had issued her death order earlier today.
“Oh.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “I could be sick.”
He’d felt the same way. “Please don’t ask me to make it easier on him by letting you come with me. This is guaranteed to turn ugly, fast.”
“It’s already ugly,” she said, her voice tight. “Kelly Halloran ordered my execution to scare you into silence,” she mused. “The bastard.” When she met his gaze, her eyes were clear, her determination shining. “You can’t expect me to sit back and watch him run you in circles.”
“If that’s your idea of encouragement, I don’t need any more,” he said.
She spread her palms across her knees. “Talk me through everything you have so far and then I’ll decide if I can best help from a safe distance or right beside you.”
“Now you’re in charge?” He wanted to leap on the idea of having an ally, of having her beside him again. If only they weren’t going up against a man who knew them both all too well.
“One of us should be.” Standing, she crossed the room to her suitcase, pulling out her laptop. “Come on. Catch me up.” She rolled her hand, urging him to fill her in while she plugged in the computer.
He marveled at her resilience. He always had. They’d said “for better or worse” on their wedding day and lived it every day since. Until he’d shut her out. She made a good point. So far, going solo had only n
etted him one easily replaced shipment of drugs. Hardly enough to snare Halloran or put an end to a system as established as Hellfire.
“All right,” he said at last. “But I won’t be convinced that you should be doing any fieldwork.”
Her mouth curved in a smirk. “You will be.”
Somehow he was afraid she could be right.
Chapter Four
Breathing in slow and deep, Sophia didn’t sit down again until she was sure her stomach wouldn’t embarrass her. “Kelly Halloran,” she said. Her anger with Frank shifted abruptly to a new target. It was hard to picture one of their oldest and dearest friends orchestrating such an elaborate criminal network, complete with a sniper aiming at her head. “When we find him, I want the first shot.”
“I won’t let you kill him,” Frank countered. “His sorry life isn’t worth spending a single day of yours in prison.”
She turned at the wariness in his voice. “I didn’t mean with a gun. I don’t want to kill him. I want to scratch his eyes out, maybe break a rib or two or blow out his knee.” Her body hummed with the need to do violence. “He threatened to kill our daughter.” The idea of it shocked her almost as much as Frank standing here alive and well. “When I’m done with him, I want him to rot in a dark, slimy little hole for the rest of his days.”
Frank gave a low whistle. “Guess I’m lucky you haven’t torn me apart.”
“The night is still young.” She sent him a glance full of warning. “If I were you, I wouldn’t bring up your grand scheme to tuck me safely away again.”
“Duly noted.”
“Good. Keep talking and let’s see what we can come up with.”
She logged on to the internet via the hotel connection and created a new online persona for tonight’s research. Assuming Halloran had technical experts with credentials equivalent to those of his renowned assassin, she didn’t want to tip them off too soon. Behind her she heard Frank resume his pacing.