by Karin Tabke
Thirteen
Jax heard him in her sleep. His voice. Dark, low, husky, calling to her.
She moaned and rolled over, burying her head under the pillow. Her body ached, as if she had a fever. The cotton sheets felt rough on her skin. The air was thick with the scent of a man’s cologne, someone who’d stayed there before her. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t the dark, dusky scent with twists of exotic spices she wanted.
Hands touched her arms.
She woke up with a start, jackknifing up in the bed. The sheets fell from her feverish body. Instinct took over. She grabbed the arms that held her and shoved them hard.
“Cassidy!” a harsh male voice choked out, followed by a loud crash.
Jax leapt out of bed, disoriented but ready to fight. Frantically she looked around the room and locked gazes with Gage, who, clad only in gray boxers, lay sprawled against the small desk and shattered chair. His eyes were as wide as quarters. He swiped at the trickle of blood on his bottom lip. “What the hell did you do that for?”
Frowning, Jax grabbed a pillow and hurled it at him, still startled by his touch. “I—you touched me!”
He shoved the pillow aside and moved to get up but halted, eyeing her angrily. “Yeah, and you nearly killed me.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Shane complained from the open door connecting their rooms. His sleepy eyes opened and focused on her clad only in a black midrift and pink flannel boxers. He looked down at Stone, then snapped back to Jax.
“Nothing,” Jax mumbled. She shook the cobwebs from her head. Her dream had been so vivid. She’d thought . . . she shook her head. Hell, she didn’t know what she’d thought.
She reached down to give Gage a hand up. Slowly, he accepted it, and she hoisted him up with ease.
“You must be eating your Wheaties,” he grumbled. When she released his hand, he rubbed the back of his neck, then cracked it.
Jax raised her eyes to Gage’s deep green ones and smiled. Couldn’t help it. She had a soft spot for him. He was big and bad, but underneath he had a heart as mushy as a roasted marshmallow. “Next time, keep your hands to yourself and you won’t get hurt.”
Shane scowled. So did Dante, who, drawn by the commotion, had come into her room. Both men looked hard at Gage. He threw his hands up. “Are you kidding me?” He looked hard at Jax. “I heard you cry out. I thought something was wrong. I come in here and you’re tossing and turning like you were having a nightmare or something. Next time I’ll let you be miserable.”
In a sudden flash of clarity Jax said, “Cross. I dreamed about him. Like I was in his head.” She shivered and ran her hands up and down her goose-fleshed arms. “He’s hyperaware. And he knows I know it.”
“I don’t like this, Cassidy,” Gage said. “He’s too dangerous.”
Jax looked at him and tried to keep the surprise from her face. “You backed me on this. Did you lie to Godfather?”
“No, I’ve just had time to think about it more. The guy has skills we can only guess at. I’ll bet you my right arm he won’t go down like one of us.”
Jax scowled. “So you’re saying with his unknown skill set I’m not up for this? Is it because I’m a woman or because you or Shane or Dante aren’t up for it either?”
Gage cursed and rubbed the back of his neck again. “No, damn it, I’m saying everything about the guy is an unknown. He’ll kill you.”
“As opposed to you?”
Gage stared at her. He didn’t have to say it; she knew what the real problem was. The last thing she wanted was for any of her team to go all knight and shining armor on her. It could get all of them killed. “He could have killed me at any given time last night. He didn’t. He didn’t because he wants me.”
Gage began to pace the floor. “So, what prevents him from taking what he wants?”
Jax looked at each one of the men in the room with her and let the question hang in the air like a heavy balloon. Gage, his green eyes narrowed in concern and anger. Dante’s deep-aqua-colored eyes and rugged face lined with apprehension, and then Shane’s. He was good looking. Painfully so. Deep-golden-colored hair, crystal blue eyes, and a crooked half smile coupled with that sexy Down Under accent made even an old woman’s heart twist with want. “His ego.”
Gage snorted. “Bullshit.”
Jax sighed, exasperated. “Look, we’ve been over this already. Stop thinking with your emotions, Gage. Think about the reality of the man, not the supersoldier he has been made into, because while he is whatever he is, at his core he is still very much all male. A competitive male, and believe it or not, an honorable one in his distorted way. Rape isn’t his style. He likes exerting his power in other ways. To a guy like him, rape is cowardly. Marcus Cross is not a coward, and raping me would give him no sense of accomplishment. He’s a hunter. His excitement comes from the chase and the ultimate surrender of his prey. He wants me to come to him. And I will. But on my terms.”
“And then what? He killed a twelve-year-old girl, for Christ’s sake! You think he’s going to let you walk away after you wheedle your way into his secret life?”
“He didn’t kill that girl.”
Gage nearly jumped out of his shorts. “What?”
“Cross told me he didn’t kill the girl. Said he doesn’t kill kids.”
Gage slapped his hand over his forehead and laughed. “And you believed him? C’ mon, Cassidy, you can’t be serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
“Jesus,” Gage pleaded, looking to his buddies for support. “Shane, Dante, would one of you please tell her she’s lost her objectivity.”
All three men looked at her as if she had grown a third head. Jax bristled. “You can all go to hell. I have’nt lost anything; if anything, I have some kind of weird connection to the guy. I knew in my gut he wasn’t lying about the girl. And it has nothing to do with objectivity; it has to do with listening to my instinct.”
Jax leaned over and grabbed her iPhone from the nightstand, pressed a few buttons, then waited a few quick heartbeats. “I knew it!” she said half to herself. She looked up to her team and smiled. “He’s going to San Francisco.” She held up her iPhone and showed them the senator’s schedule for the month. “Senator Rowland has a fund-raiser in San Francisco Friday night. We’re going.” Jax set the iPhone aside and looked pointedly at Gage. “And I knew before I checked that Cross was headed west, so don’t tell me I’ve lost my objectivity.”
“I’ll call Naomi to make the necessary arrangements,” Dante said.
“And so the plan stands,” Jax said. She warmed to it. “In a finesse game of cat and mouse, no better place to continue on to the next phase than at the fund-raiser. Should be a hoot.”
“Then what?” Gage asked, none too happy. “He forgets he’s supposed to eliminate the senator’s kid because of his lust-induced frenzy?” Gage scoffed. “Oh, wait, I forgot, he’s got a code of ethics, he doesn’t off kids.”
Jax shook her head and kept the lid on her temper. “No asshole, not what we do. I’ ve shown my hand. I flat out told him I want into his world. He’s seen my work, now I want a piece of the action. He wants me, not in his world but in his bed, and he’ll want his cash back on principle alone. I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
“I hope you’re right, Cassidy,” Shane said, looking none too pleased. “For all of our sakes.”
She plopped down on the edge of the bed. “I’m right. He’s a man, after all.”
Moments later Shane and Dante left the room, but Gage remained. His deep scowl told her he didn’t like the plan.
“What, Stone?”
“You don’t have to sleep with him.”
“C’mon, Gage. It’s just sex.” And she believed it. She had to, to survive.
“Fuck him, Jax, and he’ll kill you.”
She snapped, standing up and pushing him with both hands. She pushed him hard. “It warms my heart that after all this time, after all my training and after the success of V
egas you don’t think I have enough gray matter in my head not to jump in the sack with him the first chance I get!”
“It’s not that,” he defended. But she knew it was part of what was bugging him. And that pissed her off. She was a lethal weapon. A weapon that could and did strike with deadly precision.
“Then don’t tell me how to do my job.” She moved into his space to make her next point. “And don’t imagine there’s anything but a professional relationship between us, Gage. Don’t romanticize me. We both do what we need to, to survive. That’s all.”
She saw the raw pain in his eyes. She didn’t know Stone’s story, none of the guys were chatty Cathys, but she knew he had suffered a devastating loss in his life. And she was sorry for that, but she wasn’t the one to save him. That he’d have to do on his own, just like she had. “Don’t you ever want more than just to survive?” he asked softly.
She thought of Marcus. Of his background. Of how his past shaped his present. “Sure,” she said flippantly. “I also want world peace and a parade, but I’m not gonna get it. Survival and purpose suit me just fine for now.”
He didn’t move, but instead looked down at her with eyes full of hurt, anger and disappointment. “Go to bed, Stone,” she wearily said.
He stalked off into the other room, leaving the door cracked. Jax strode over to it and shut it, then loudly locked it. She sat down on the edge of her bed. Angrily she picked up her phone and sent a quick text to the man with the magic wand.
call off stone
For a long time Jax lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. She fought sleep, afraid she’d have another erotic dream of Cross. She cursed herself for being so susceptible to him, but when she closed her eyes, she still heard him. Calling to her.
From the darkness of the patio of the woman’s twelfth-floor hotel room, Marcus watched a man leave her room. He followed his departure with murderous eyes, amazed that he’d kept himself from breaking the man’s neck when he’d felt his desire for the woman swell. The only thing that saved him was that the woman didn’t reciprocate the desire.
Through the thick glass that separated them, Marcus could smell her wild, sultry scent. She fidgeted in bed for several long minutes before falling into a restless sleep.
After leaving Lazarus, he hadn’t been able to resist coming to her. He was in her blood, as she was in his. And as long as her blood was in him, he could find her anywhere. She couldn’t hide.
He smiled, the gesture paining him down to his groin. Never, not even in human form, had he wanted anything as badly as he wanted to sink inside her. He pressed his hand to the glass. Her body arched.
He slid his hand down the glass. He could feel her skin. Smooth, warm, wanton. He watched her undulate, her full lips parted. Her hand pressed to where he imagined his to be upon her right breast. He hissed in a breath and jerked his hand away from the glass. He could feel the soft, warm imprint of her hand upon his.
Slowly he backed away, adding distance between them. He had come only to see her. What he got was alcohol on the open wound of his desire. He wanted her. It didn’t matter what she wanted with him; she would not get it. He was stronger, faster, deadlier. He had no fear of death. He was already dead.
The only thing that gave his soulless life purpose was doing what he hadn’t been able to do as a mortal. Effortlessly infiltrate and eliminate enemies of the state. He had cleaned out more terror cells in the last seven years than the U.S. government had cleaned up in the last three decades. But they were like roaches. When one nest was eradicated, three more sprang up. He had nothing but clear skies and time ahead of him. The thought didn’t electrify him as it once did. Quite the opposite. He wanted something more. Something . . . honest.
He smiled bitterly. There were those who took issue with his end game. He maintained his personal code of ethics, but admittedly, there had been collateral damage along the way. Some of it he wasn’t proud of. He wondered, at times, if he would rot in hell when death finally claimed his immortal life.
Maybe he should stay where he stood and await the sun, perhaps then his soul would be at peace. As it was, it clamored for something he knew he could not find in his current life. What it was he didn’t know. His eyes narrowed and he put both hands against the glass. With slow, methodical care, Marcus strummed her body, much like one would a harp.
Her soft cries of desire pulled at him . . . almost to the edge.
Abruptly he turned from the glass door, hopped to the top of the concrete-and-steel patio wall, then jumped into the night.
Fourteen
The elegant Green Room in San Francisco’s War Memorial Veterans Building was a bustle of activity. From behind a green and gold-trimmed Corinthian column, Jax watched the waitstaff move with the vigor of a beehive. China clinked, crystal chimed and silverware pinged, each sound combining to make an oddly soothing melody.
Jax checked her watch. In just a couple of hours, two hundred and fifty of the senator’s closest friends and supporters would arrive. Each one had paid three thousand dollars for a twenty-dollar cut of beef or hunk of Pacific salmon, as well as the privilege to chatter and pump hands with the upper crust. Of course, those friends would also remind the senator whose hard-earned cash had funded his last three terms as California’s only Republican senator.
Rowland was a rare breed in California—a conservative politician who’d prospered despite the “anything goes” attitude of young adults exercising the right to vote. His opponent, a Democrat whose charm and slick words had captivated the city for years, had an abundance of public peccadilloes. Rowland had exploited them mercilessly.
During a recent FOX interview, he’d very famously stated, “Family is the foundation of our country. If you erode that, we have nothing.” Then he’d calmly informed the public why he’d been unconcerned when his opponent, San Francisco mayor Johnny Mercer, declared his intentions to run against him.
“You’ve trusted me for eighteen years—a man who served his country loyally in Vietnam, a man faithful to his wife, and a devoted dad who coaches his daughter’s soccer games; how could you possibly trust a philandering mayor, an admitted louse who preyed on the wife of his own brother? What message would that send?”
When the interviewer had asked him about his opponent’s allegation—that Rowland had used his political muscle to squash a grand jury investigation against his old college buddy Walter “Waldo” Cummings—Rowland had publicly sworn on his daughter’s life that Waldo had had no idea when he’d recruited members for investment opportunities that he’d been intentionally debunking Californians out of their hard-earned money.
Rowland had gone even further, opening his own books and showing that he, too, had lost a chunk of change in the investment.
That had taken some balls. For that alone, Jax was looking forward to meeting Rowland.
Jax backed slowly out of the room and onto the long, columned loggia. Ornate potted palms, brought in specifically for this event, stood sentinel between the columns, giving the illusion of security. They filled in the gaps between the columns, breaking the stiff Pacific breeze. Despite the leafy barrier, the warm, sultry scents of summer wisped around her nostrils. Dressed in a short black sheath, she found the temperature perfect.
Though the function tonight was not black tie, it was formal. Nonetheless, she’d dismissed wearing a fuller-length dress. She wanted optimum mobility if she had to take off after anyone for any reason.
Jax smiled.
Besides, she thought, she had great legs, and the dress showed them off to their advantage in the classic black Jimmy Choo peek-a-boo pumps she wore. The only problem with the attire there was no place to conceal a gun, so she’d strapped a short knife to the inside of her right thigh.Still, she had a few tricks up her sleeve. Literally. Her wide gold bracelets broke down into Chinese throwing stars, and the double finger starburst ring on her right hand clicked into razor-sharp brass knuckles. She could do a lot of up-close damage. Those little trinkets and
her hands would have to do the job tonight if she found herself or any of the Rowlands in a bind.
Closing her eyes, she inhaled. She could almost smell the expensive smoke of imported cigars as the gentlemen excused themselves after dinner and hashed out deals in the dimly lit alcoves. She loved the smell of a good cigar; it reminded her of her maternal grandfather. He was one of the reasons she’d become a cop. She’d wanted to be just like Pappy when she grew up. She shook her head and cursed. He would have disowned her if he had lived to see her disgrace.
Jax slipped between a palm and a column and walked to the edge of the balustrade, where she gazed out at City Hall. Inhaling deeply, she slowly exhaled. But if Pappy saw her now, he’d be proud. He’d understand. Everything happened for a reason, her Nana used to say. She’d had to endure Montes to be here, where she served a greater purpose. She shifted her gaze to the vast open areas between the labyrinths of buildings that made up the performing arts center in San Francisco—the opera house, the symphony hall and this one, the Veterans Building, which encompassed its own group of impressive rooms. It was the perfect place to throw a mega fund-raiser.
Security-wise it sucked.
Too many entrances and exits. Too many stairways and back-room elevators. Out here on the loggia with all the potted palms enclosing the space like a comforting glove, there were plenty of places to hide. But the senator wanted the lavish event to give his guests a sense of privacy and security. Yeah, Jax thought, a perfect sense of security for anyone who wanted to take a potshot at the senator or snatch his daughter.
Despite the foliage, Jax made a perfect target. To a mediocre sniper, it would be like pointing a shotgun into a barrel of fish. Her gaze traversed the span of space between where she stood and the rest of the city. Was Cross out there at this moment, watching her? Was she in his crosshairs? A slight shiver ran along her spine up through her neck and along her arms. What if he was? Her lips pulled back into a tight grin. Raising both hands, she gave him the universal salute he would have no problem deciphering.