by Helena Maeve
“Show me,” he bit out, voice hoarse and guttural.
It was a familiar order. Back in the day, whenever Ignacio hadn’t wanted Will bent over the back of a chair, he’d wanted to watch him. He’d liked to talk dirty as Will teetered on the brink of orgasm, desperate but forbidden from coming.
They’d played that game more often than they had indulged in quickie hand jobs in the back of cars or dark alleys where anyone could stumble upon them. And Will remembered many of those.
Ignacio hadn’t changed.
The bittersweet flashbacks were as powerful an aphrodisiac as the wine that Will had imbibed. Neither would have been enough to stir him to action on their own, but together they made up a potent brew. Clumsily, he got his legs under him and started to stand so he could undress. Ignacio shook his head.
“Stay where you are.”
“Why?”
Ignacio cocked an eyebrow. “Do you need a reason?”
Will never had in the past. Tonight wasn’t the night he charted new territory.
Under Ignacio’s watchful gaze, lulled by the ponderous heave of his breaths, he began peeling off the scant layers of his armor. He didn’t feel humiliated. He knew he should have.
He wanted Ignacio to keep looking.
Chapter Nine
Many minutes of delight and denial dragged by before Ignacio finally allowed him into bed. Joints creaking contemptibly, Will pushed up from the floor and shucked his fast-wrinkling trousers. He couldn’t bring himself to care about the state of his kit. Exhaustion had finally caught up with him.
He collapsed beside Ignacio in a bed not his own and sheets that didn’t smell of the detergent he used at home. His eyelids were already drooping shut when he felt Ignacio run a warm washcloth over his thighs and hand, cleaning away the evidence of his release. Through lowered lashes, his silhouette was a hazy, indistinct shadow bent over Will. Neither of them spoke, much less acknowledged the uncanny tenderness Ignacio seemed willing to display.
Sleep came easily for a change. Will had no memory of closing his eyes. When he opened them, the master bedroom was plunged into shadow. Moonlight streamed through the arched windows, slanting shadows across the floor. He didn’t know, at first, what roused him.
Ignacio lay unmoving on the bed, about a foot away but still within easy reach. His breaths were slow and even, rib cage rising and falling beneath the sheets.
Something didn’t feel right.
Will couldn’t place the sentiment. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed movement in the shadows at the foot of his bed. Understanding crashed into him like a battering ram.
They weren’t alone.
Senses prickling, Will made every effort to stay as still as possible. Was it just the one? Was he armed? By the slant of his shoulders and his cat-quiet tread, Will felt reasonably comfortable assuming both that their uninvited guest was a man and that he hadn’t simply stumbled into the bedroom by mistake.
Shadows clung to the intruder, shrouding him in blissful anonymity. The floorboards didn’t creak underfoot as he approached.
It was only when the man rounded the bed on Ignacio’s side that Will saw the pistol.
He couldn’t guess model and make in the dark, but he recognized the extended barrel, the unwelcome, disquieting addition of a silencer.
It screamed professional hit. Will had used one himself more than a handful of times in his career.
He tensed, shifting his objective from quiet observation to neutralizing an imminent threat. He searched his memory but couldn’t remember there being a weapon within reach.
If there was a lamp on the nightstand, he could forge a distraction. If there was a phone, he could pitch it at the assassin’s eyes, hope for contact. It wouldn’t be enough to disable the attack, but it might do for a delay.
Priority went to getting Ignacio to safety.
The intruder raised the barrel of his pistol to Ignacio’s temple, gloved finger hovering above the trigger.
All of Will’s plans went straight to hell as he pushed up from the soft mattress and lunged for the assassin.
Their bodies collided gracelessly, gravity doing most of the work to drag them down. Will struck the floor with an elbow, pain shooting up his arm and into his shoulder, but his first and foremost concern was seizing the pistol before it could be fired.
A shot rang out, not nearly as whisper-silent as Hollywood would’ve made it out to be.
Plaster dust trickled from the bullet hole in the ceiling.
Will wrapped a hand around the shooter’s wrist only to be rewarded with a punch to the face. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he spied Ignacio levering upright on the bed.
Run caught in his throat, thick with the copper-penny tang of his own blood. He was hit again, vision blurring instantly. It didn’t stop him bearing down on the intruder’s windpipe with a forearm. Atrophied muscles burned with effort, but there was some satisfaction to be had in hearing the man struggle for breath.
That’s it. Just a little more.
Hypoxia would set in long before death, with all the attendant unpleasantness of not knowing which way was up anymore. Not being able to see straight.
It occurred to Will that he might have crowed too soon when his opponent curled the wrist Will had pinned to the ground, angling the pistol closer and closer to his own head.
Suicide was a popular outcome of failed missions. It was the final sacrifice as much as a coward’s way to avoid months or years of torment.
Aching with the struggle, Will made a split-second decision.
He released the man’s arm and grabbed the pistol instead, sliding his thumb between trigger and steel guard. Agony exploded behind his eyes when the hitman squeezed down.
The gun did not fire.
A bright glare flooded the room, the sound of heavy footfalls ringing in Will’s ears as Ignacio’s bodyguards finally—finally—caught on.
He forced his eyes open, easing up onto his haunches and stumbling back against the bed beneath the muzzles of half a dozen Berettas. His thumb was bleeding profusely, but he had the pistol.
Ignacio squeezed his shoulder, very much alive and unhurt.
The same could not be said of the man coughing on the floor a mere five feet away.
Ruben’s agony was just beginning.
* * * *
Ice clinked in a crystal tumbler, the foundation of what Will was sure would be the first of many hard drinks. He didn’t begrudge Ignacio the weakness. Were it not for the painkillers he’d swallowed, he might have considered joining him
“Did you know?” Ignacio asked, his back to the room.
“No.”
“Did you suspect?”
Will pressed his lips into a thin line. “I wish I had.” He had assumed that Ruben was just another hanger-on, a pretty face with enough savvy to attach himself to a powerful man. His breed thrived the world over. The scent of money and power called to them. Ruthlessness came with the territory.
Murder was seldom in their repertoire, but there were always exceptions.
Ignacio downed half of his gin and tonic in one swallow. “I should have suspected.”
“If you did, he would’ve failed his mission much sooner,” Will reasoned. “Assuming this was the mission.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been sleeping with him for a while now…if he was sent to kill you, he could’ve done it sooner.” Before I entered the picture. Will was no Rambo, but any unknown quantity could alter the predicted outcome of an op. He glanced up from the gauzy mushroom of his bandaged thumb to find Ignacio watching him, a question in his hooded eyes. “I think he was running surveillance,” Will explained.
He had no proof. Alive but injured, Ruben had refused to cooperate even under threat of torture. Will hadn’t gone so far as to use any yet.
A few hours in Ignacio’s cellar, in the dark, could yet prove sufficient to soften the boy’s iron will.
“Section already
has Sosa,” Ignacio recalled. “Why would they need Ruben to spy for them?”
Will shrugged. “What if it’s not Section pulling his strings?”
A bright morning sloped through the open French windows, salty breeze stirring the pale curtains. Will looked out onto the verdant garden. Waves lapped gently beyond the pool, cargo and cruise ships a splash of color gliding along in the distance. An emerald ocean stretched as far as the edge of horizon, glittering with shards of golden light.
It was a breathtaking vista, but Will could barely appreciate it. His thoughts zigzagged, past the known and the substantiated into conjecture and best guesses.
“What if this is payback?” he mused.
He’d been a step behind since Karim first showed up at his office under a false name—maybe even before. Steering by his old friend’s compass was no way to navigate shallow waters.
No wonder he’d been beached.
“I can hear you thinking,” Ignacio chided softly, bridging the gap between them with a slow gait. He’d always had a predatory air about him, a trait that had long convinced Will the best he could ever do was grow comfortable playing the prey.
But not all hunters were solitary. Some needed a pack around them to survive.
He caught Ignacio’s hand in his uninjured fist and kissed his knuckles. “I have to tell you something you won’t like.”
“What?”
“Ruben walks free.”
Ignacio made to retrieve his hand, but Will arrested the attempt.
“I’m not in the habit of showing mercy to men who attempt to murder me,” Ignacio ground out. “Encourages them to try again.”
“He won’t. We’ll cut a deal with his handler—”
Ignacio’s sneer was a predictable, unpreventable outcome. “Who I should trust why?”
“Because he doesn’t want a war with you,” Will pointed out. “Believe me. He tried to persuade you once. He sent me—”
“And when his methods didn’t yield the desired result, he had his little swallow try to put a bullet in my head!”
“He sent me to reason with you,” Will insisted.
Ignacio regarded him coolly over the rim of his glass. “Is that what you’ve been doing? Reasoning?” His voice was like a whip. His contempt stung sharply.
Will wasn’t fooled. He pressed his cheek into Ignacio’s palm, brushing lips to his life line.
“I’m not Ruben.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
And yet you’re terrified that I’m only here to use you.
It would have been touching, perhaps even ironic, if it wasn’t deserved. Their relationship had begun with Section’s off-the-books blessing and it had been sacrificed on the altar of raison d’état once before.
A decade later, Will had no desire to repeat the mistakes of the past.
He parted his lips for Ignacio’s thumb, eyes fluttering shut at the scrape against his tongue, the slow back and forth of friction as Ignacio made use of his mouth whichever way he pleased.
“If I agree,” Ignacio started.
Will tilted his head back and licked his lips. “I’ll negotiate the ceasefire.”
“And Section?”
“I owe you a proposal, remember?”
Ignacio didn’t smile, but the tension around his eyes seemed to lessen. He pulled Will to him with a hand behind his nape. “Does your hand hurt very much?”
Will shook his head, cheek rubbing into the soft fabric of Ignacio’s shirt and the cool leather of his belt. “It’s just a flesh wound. I’ll heal in no time.”
He’d suffered worse.
It was a long beat before Ignacio spoke again. “I owe you my life.” He sounded slightly bewildered by this new development.
Will said nothing. He hadn’t acted last night for the sake of forcing Ignacio’s hand.
With the wind stirring their clothes and gentle, petting strokes easing the kinks in his neck, he had no desire to examine his motives. It was worrying enough to discover that Section had never been further from his thoughts.
* * * *
Café do Sol teemed with patrons of all ages at six o’clock on a workday.
Students and office bees milled around small wooden tables, cradling cups of steaming coffee in their hands. The hubbub of mingled voices drowned out most conversations, including the pair sitting at the far back, well removed from windows that overlooked the busy thoroughfare and the mouth-watering pastry displays that lined the wall opposite.
No one paid them any mind. That was the point.
“He is alive.” Karim knew better than to rely on wishful thinking. Perhaps age had softened his heart. Perhaps living every day under threat of capture had taken its toll.
Will nodded.
“Tortured?”
“There were some who suggested it, but cooler heads prevailed. I was able to stay their hand. For now.”
Karim methodically stirred a cube of brown sugar into his tea, spoon clinking against the edges of the porcelain cup. “What’s the price?”
“Your word that this won’t happen again.”
“My word is worth that much to you?” Karim asked, arching his brow in disbelief.
“I’m not finished. Sosa keeps what he knows to himself—whatever pressures Section exerts, he can’t divulge any information on the Macias family. They’ll know.”
“You mean you will… I wonder,” Karim went on meditatively, “is it Section you work for these days, or your new paramour?”
Will would have been insulted if he hadn’t accused Karim of the same. “Do you agree?”
“Nothing for Arthur Foley?”
The man Ignacio had paid to shut Manuel Sosa up for good seemed like a strange choice of ally. Will decided against speculating about Karim’s reasons for saving the boy’s neck.
“Ignacio will stop hunting him. I can’t promise the same for Section…but I imagine you have someone else working that angle.”
“You know me too well.”
“I do.” It’s why I know you’ll take the offer. They had been friends once—or whatever passed for friends in an industry where trust was nonexistent and assignments could shatter even the most flourishing career. Their shared history was an asset.
Will considered the dregs of his coffee with a calculating eye before restoring his cup to its saucer.
“Independence Park, close to the monument. That’s where you’ll find Ruben. I trust I don’t need to tell you that if I am followed—”
“We will find him without hands?” Karim guessed.
The suggestion prompted a scoff. “I’m not a barbarian,” replied Will. “I’ll kill the boy.”
Karim’s eyebrows shot up in pale imitation of surprise. He shouldn’t have been at all perplexed. He was the one who had taught Will to strike where it hurt, to be prepared to use force when he threatened.
To respond to violence with violence, if necessary.
The sliding doors parted for Will with a whisper.
He stood on the sidewalk for a moment, letting his vision adjust to the bright glare of headlights and shop windows.
The city pulsed with life around him, blissfully unaware of the wars fought in its shadows, behind the tourist-friendly monuments, by the fading light of ancient affinities. Will turned for the subway, a spring in his step.
He’d missed this game.
Chapter Ten
Will arrived at the office by a circuitous route, long after anyone else who was supposed to be there had already left. He exchanged a few words with Luis at the gate, then trooped upstairs, humming under his breath. He offered no pretext, no excuse. None was needed.
Times like these, working seventeen-hour days, if not sleeping at his post, paid dividends.
He left the lights off on the landing. No need to waste the power when there was enough of a glow from the streetlights to see by. The floorboards creaked underfoot as he passed Cleo’s desk and stepped into the labyrinthine disorder of his own office.<
br />
His assistant had often threatened to shred the files he’d left stacked on desks and side tables if he didn’t get around to sending them off the London. So far they were still gathering dust in wobbly piles of ancient reports and never-to-be-declassified intel.
They made the perfect cover for the figure waiting in the shadows of the office.
Will only noticed it out of the corner of his eye as he stalked toward the desk, footsteps no more hurried than they’d been before he glimpsed the flash of movement.
His heart lurched into his throat. Don’t look, don’t look.
Karim had sent someone else. Of course he had. He wasn’t the sort of man who tolerated loose ends.
Will wrenched open the desk drawer, whistling, and hooked his finger around the false back panel.
“Are you looking for this?” a familiar voice asked.
The revolver came into view first, before Cleo herself stepped into the dull oblong of yellow light that streamed in through the window.
Will’s stomach sank. “Whatever you think you’re doing—”
“Jennings came by the office after you left.” Cleo’s voice was clipped, her grip steady around the gun. She meant business. “You want to know what’s funny? He didn’t look a thing like the man I let into your office last week.”
“He’s not.”
“Yes, thank you. I gathered as much.”
“Look, it’s not what you think. I’m not—”
“Conspiring against your country? Lying to me? Betraying my trust while you go gallivanting around the city with gangsters?”
Will clamped his mouth shut. It was too late.
Cleo already had the missing puzzle pieces in hand. She just needed to figure out how they fit and the rickety tower he’d built over the past few days would crumble.
“I spoke to Florencia.” The boards creaked as she stepped closer, the gun still leveled squarely at Will’s chest. “Turns out you’ve been looking into Ignacio Macias… An old flame of yours, I believe.”