He lifted her feet off the ground, and she was completely under his control—it scared her, but it also turned her on. She was so used to being in charge, it was both terrifying and exhilarating to let someone else take over.
And it was only for a few hours.
Tomorrow she’d be back in Virginia and the chance of running into the handsome, virile Agent Randall was slim to none.
As his hands moved expertly over her she decided to just go with it. Keep her mouth shut, take the pleasure and damn the consequences. They’d both get what they wanted, and tomorrow they could move on without always wondering what it would have been like between them.
She knew now.
It would have been glorious.
Chapter Fourteen
Ashley slipped out when it was still dark. Lucas didn’t stir.
She’d dozed briefly, but the unfamiliar feeling of sharing a bed with another person had woken her. The novelty of letting her guard down, if only in the throes of passion, unnerved her. She couldn’t sleep. She’d watched Lucas sleep for a few minutes, then forced herself to slide off the bed and out of his life.
Her limbs shook as she tugged on her pants and her blouse, and dragged her fingers through her hair. If anyone saw her they’d know exactly what she’d been doing all night long. Careful to leave nothing behind, she tucked her underwear into the pockets of her suit jacket, pulled out her keycard and crept back to her own room.
Inside she noticed a note from Mallory propped up against the sink. The other agent had gone to see Rex, who was recovering nicely from his GSW. Mallory wasn’t sure what time she’d be back.
Had she known Ashley was with Lucas last night? She must have suspected something, not that it mattered. It was a one-time thing, not happily ever after.
Ashley showered quickly, then packed her few belongings and ordered a cab. The sooner she got to the airport the sooner she could forget a certain agent with a smile that had snuck its way inside her heart.
Stupid heart.
Stupid woman.
She dragged her FBI persona from the depths of her boots and slapped it in place. It was time to stop taking foolish chances with a career that meant everything to her. It was time to stop risking people she cared about by letting them in even a little bit. Her life wasn’t a game. Her deception wasn’t a whim. It was a fight for survival just as surely as if she were staring down the barrel of a gun.
She’d already been given her second chance. She wasn’t counting on ever getting a third.
* * *
Andrew stared at the photograph of Special Agent Ashley Chen. It had been particularly difficult to track down, as if she hadn’t wanted it to be found. Now it felt like there was a centrifuge spinning at full speed in his chest. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t stand. He checked her date of birth. December 26th 1984.
December 26th—the day the world had ended. The day Jenny Britton had died.
It was too big a coincidence not to be true.
He stared at the woman’s unsmiling features, starker than when he’d last seen her at sixteen, but so like his mother’s the resemblance made him ache with longing for the gentle woman who’d raised him.
What would his mother think of him now?
He shoved the thought aside. His mother would never know.
Jenny had made herself four years older on paper. A clever ruse that would have thrown him if he’d ever thought to look for her.
That December morning in 2004 had shaped his destiny. He’d been swept inside the villa through the open doorway and had grabbed Brandon by his T-shirt and dragged him onto the stairs. They’d scrambled madly and managed to get to the upper floor, climbing out of a window and up onto the roof where they’d sat and prayed the water didn’t rise any further. That time on the roof, watching helplessly as people were swept out to sea, worrying that another wave was coming, this one bigger, had seemed to last forever. As soon as the water had receded, he and Brandon had climbed back down and started looking for their family.
His uncle had been badly injured, the bodyguard killed. They’d called in one of their many helicopters, and the old man had been picked up and flown out for medical treatment. Andrew and Brandon had spent days searching the area for Jenny, examining the injured, the dying and finally the dead who’d stared up at him out of faces barely recognizable as human. Some nights he woke with the stench of rotten corpses still in his nostrils.
For several days there was no sign of her, and he’d resigned himself to the fact his beloved sister had been sucked into the jaws of the ocean, her body lost for eternity. Then he’d been told about a female who’d been brought in wearing the same clothes Jenny had been wearing—a red Mickey Mouse T-shirt and blue jeans. The girl’s face had been horribly disfigured and he’d been unable to say for sure if it was her until he’d spotted the diamond studs his uncle had given her on Christmas Day sparkling in her blackened earlobes.
Prior to the tsunami, he’d been so angry at the direction his life had taken that he’d barely noticed what was going on with his sister. The loss of his parents, his high school girlfriend turning out to be a slut who serviced the football team. He’d thought the world bleak and depressing. Preoccupied and selfish, self-pity had blinded him to the truth about the world they’d been thrown into.
He hadn’t understood the true nature of his uncle’s business until he’d watched the man kill Jenny’s boyfriend in cold blood. He hadn’t understood the twisted feelings his uncle harbored for his sister until she’d screamed it to him on that fateful morning.
He hadn’t believed her then. Not really. And moments later it had been too late.
Jenny had always been the rebel. The crusader. She’d been defiant, and so goddamned obstinate. After growing up in California she hadn’t adapted well to living in Asia. She refused to back down from an argument. She refused to be meek. She never bent.
She would never have survived in their uncle’s world of deviance and vice. Although the grief had nearly destroyed him, Andrew had been glad she was dead—at least she didn’t know what he’d become.
But she was alive. He touched her picture. Very much alive.
An FBI agent. Jenny was an FBI agent trying to find the men who ran the Boston brothel.
Part of him wanted to laugh. The other part wanted to scream. She was alive! How ironic that his uncle’s sex trafficking business had brought her back into their lives. The idea of her knowing that he was complicit in all this, how he’d set things up and was in charge all their cyber operations made shame bubble up inside him. He couldn’t claim he didn’t know what was going on. He couldn’t pretend it was somebody else. If she discovered that the perpetrators were the Dragon Devils she’d know it was him. She’d know and despise him for his weakness.
He called Rabbit.
“Hello.” From the polite edge in the man’s voice Andrew knew it was a bad time. He didn’t care.
“There’s an FBI agent called Ashley Chen. I want to know where she’s staying.”
“I’m not sure—”
“You have twenty minutes to find out.” He hung up. Maybe it was a good thing he’d let the man live. Even perverts had their uses.
He steeled himself and climbed to his feet. He didn’t want to tell Yu Chang the truth about Jenny, but if he didn’t, Brandon would, and then Andrew’s loyalty would be questioned.
He didn’t want to die.
Preparations for their move were almost complete. Men hauled boxes of possessions to a ship nearby. Andrew couldn’t wait to leave. There was a very real possibility that the Americans were actively hunting them now. Maybe Jenny herself was telling them everything she knew about her nerdy brother and dubious relatives.
The next compound wasn’t somewhere Jenny had ever seen or heard of. It should be safe enough.
He walked down the corridor, knocked quietly on the door.
“Who is it?” The old man sounded angry.
Andrew walked in. Lily was sitting
naked on her knees at the end of the old man’s bed. Something inside him withered and died. He hadn’t expected her to still be here. Blood squeezed painfully through his veins.
She looked up, then averted her eyes as he walked across the room to where his uncle sat at his desk wearing only a loosely tied silk robe.
“I can see why you like the girl, Andrew. I appreciate you sharing her with me.” The old man said it like Lily was a bottle of whiskey or some candy, or just another whore. That’s what the old man had done. Reduced something that could have been meaningful to Andrew into an impersonal service to be shared between men.
Andrew bowed. “Everything I have is yours, Uncle.”
Lily flinched in his peripheral vision, and his stomach twisted. The old man had purposely kept her with him until Andrew had arrived. That’s why she was still here, so there could be no lies regarding this. No whitewashing of the reality of what had happened.
Andrew turned and spoke like she was just a maid. “Get dressed and get back to the kitchen. They need help packing.” He and Yu Chang would be gone in a few hours, and she’d never have to see him again. She’d be safe from them both.
Tears formed in her eyes, but her gaze stayed on his uncle. The old man had already taught her who was in charge.
Andrew felt sick. He was trying to protect her, but he couldn’t let on. His uncle wasn’t completely stable, especially when it came to discussing Andrew’s sister, Jenny, or his mother, Jun. There was no knowing what the man might do when he heard about Jenny, especially if he had someone he considered disposable within arm’s reach.
His uncle looked at Lily and seemed to be considering Andrew’s request. Andrew looked out the window until his uncle relented. “You can go. But wait for my nephew in his bed and do for him everything you did for me. He looks tired—help him relax. He deserves it.”
His uncle smiled while inside Andrew recoiled. And yet he knew he’d have to lie there and let her touch him and take him, even if he was as limp as a squid. His uncle knew everything that went on in Andrew’s world. Everything.
Except about Jenny. He hadn’t known about Jenny.
Once Yu Chang heard the news about his sister, the little power play with Lily was going to be of no consequence. Andrew waited impatiently as the young woman ran to get her clothes that were piled on a chair near the door. She dragged her dress over her head, bowed and left as quickly as she could. Humiliation glowed in her cheeks.
The humiliation was his.
He should have known better than to get attached. Pushing her away was the only way to get her out of this nightmare. He’d been a damned fool to think they could have anything approaching a normal relationship.
When the door closed Andrew raised his chin. “You must prepare yourself, Uncle. I have bad news.”
His uncle’s expression fell slightly, but Andrew held his silence. The old man thought his son had been captured or killed. Andrew enjoyed Yu Chang’s grief for a fraction of a second before he realized how low he’d sunk. To rejoice in someone else’s grief made him no better than the man across the room.
Andrew walked closer and held out the photograph.
His uncle stood using the cane he’d needed since his leg had been broken in three places by the tsunami. The man’s hands shook, and Andrew was shocked to see tears brimming in his eyes.
“Jun?” he said in a shaky voice. His uncle reared back and appeared to stumble.
Andrew shook his head. “Not Jun.” His mother would be so ashamed if she could see him now, especially as he betrayed a little girl who’d once meant everything to him. “Jenny. Jenny is alive.”
* * *
Lucas slumped into a chair inside Sloan’s office and checked his wristwatch for the third time inside a minute. “Where is this guy?”
Detective Nelson Shaw of the Hong Kong Police Department was late.
“Damned if I know.” Sloan eyed him narrowly, clearly aware of his less than sunny demeanor.
After a night of great sex Lucas should have felt on top of the world. But waking up to an empty bed at five AM had left him pissed off and dissatisfied. Last night had obviously meant something completely different to him than it had to Ashley. The woman had slipped out of his room without a word. When he’d knocked on her door on the way to work no one had answered. Then when he’d arrived at the field office, Sloan had informed him that as of last night the BAU-4 agents had been ordered back to Virginia—a fact Ashley had failed to mention. He shouldn’t feel so furious, but fuck if it didn’t incense him to be treated like some meaningless hookup.
It wasn’t how he operated. It wasn’t who he was. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had ditched him…in fact, he was pretty sure Ashley Chen was the first.
“Did Chen find out anything interesting concerning Theo Giovanni yesterday?” Sloan’s words were a sharp stick prodding an open wound.
“No, but I’m sure she’d have mentioned any major developments.” Maybe between going down on him in the shower and him bending her over the couch. He was furious with himself for losing focus on the investigation. He wasn’t a randy kid, but with her he had been.
“The fact Giovanni is still alive is a good sign,” Sloan mumbled.
At least it looked like she’d gotten some sleep last night, but there were rumors she was about to be replaced as team leader. After the effort she’d put into this investigation it wouldn’t be fair, but knowing how politics worked in the Bureau it was almost a foregone conclusion.
“After this Hong Kong detective leaves I want you concentrating on finding the kid’s mother.” They were alone, but even so she still didn’t mention Becca by name. “Bring in assistance if you need it—as long as you trust them implicitly.” She eyed him meaningfully. “I’m going to need to brief anyone who replaces me.”
Shit. “Yes, ma’am.”
Time was running out and he was torn. If they stopped keeping Becca’s survival a secret they could involve victim support and get the kid some real help. But too many people had died in connection to the Chinatown brothel to feel a hundred percent confident they could keep her alive once the bad guys discovered they had a living witness.
They needed to finish this thing.
They needed to shut these people down.
They needed to figure out who the kid was and whether or not she had a family who gave a damn. Becca’s mother might give them information on the gambling part of the operation, but there was no way the woman was getting her kid back. Maybe there were grandparents, or an aunt who’d take Becca.
The idea of someone bartering their child for money angered him down to his marrow. He’d grown up in a good family—not just privileged, but good. Hardworking. Dedicated to service. Honorable. They made him proud, and he did his best to return the favor.
He stood up and paced the tiny room. He needed to catch these criminals. He needed to know that little girl would be safe.
Sloan replied to an email as the clock ticked.
As soon as he’d spoken to this detective he’d ask Ashley for her help finding Becca’s family. That’s what he’d planned to do yesterday and damned if he was allowing his job to be affected by the fact they slept together.
The BAU was still assisting them, just from afar. More importantly, he trusted her. Ashley Chen might not be great with people, but she was a good agent. Hardworking. Dedicated. Hot.
Yeah—hot was a bit of an issue.
Theoretically he should inform the Bureau they were involved, except, they weren’t. She’d left without a frickin’ word.
“At least we have ballistics tying Susan Thomas’s murder, Ray Tan’s assassination and Agata Maroulis’s murder together.” It suggested a sophisticated organized crime network. One that was starting to unravel. Lucas could practically hear the panic in their actions, but he didn’t want anyone else to die.
“Where the hell is this guy?” Sloan’s frustration leaked through in the sharpness of her tone.
There
was a knock on the door, and Lucas opened it to see an Asian man in a black suit standing in the doorway with Diego Fuentes.
“This is Detective Nelson Shaw, Hong Kong Police Department, Criminal Intelligence Bureau.” Fuentes stated. “He says he may have information about the perpetrators.” Fuentes leaned against the doorjamb chewing gum with a laconic twist of his jaw.
Nelson Shaw bowed formally. He had short, ink-black hair and intelligent eyes that suggested he knew he was being weighed as an enemy. He shook them each by the hand with a firm grip. “Thank you for meeting with me. I hope we can be of service to one another.” His words were formal, his accent more British than Chinese, making Lucas wonder where the guy had been educated.
They set up in the conference room Mallory and Ashley had just vacated. Lucas swore he could smell the sweetness of Ashley’s skin cream. He didn’t think he’d ever get the damned scent out of his brain.
She hadn’t left a note or sent him a text.
He put his coffee on the table with a loud thunk. Get over it. He was acting like a love-sick fool. It was a hookup. She’d made that more than clear, leaving the way she had, and he was fine with that. She wasn’t relationship material. She was prickly and temperamental, obstinate, rash, opinionated. Determined to be independent. And she lived in freaking Virginia.
He wanted someone he could spend time with. Do normal things with like go to dinner, the movies, spend time with his family, go hiking, maybe workout with.
Workout naked with…
He scrubbed his hands over his face and took a big chug of coffee.
Caffeine was his friend.
Nelson Shaw pulled a file out of the leather messenger bag slung across his chest. Laid it on the table and pulled out a series of 8 x 10 poor quality glossies. They showed an array of Asian males ranging in age from twenty to eighty.
Lucas had spent enough time with Alex Parker in cyber-security meetings to be suspicious of anything Chinese, which included the guy himself and anything that might be in that bag. Top of his list was electronic listening devices, followed a close second by flash drives that might accidentally get left behind. It was human nature to plug those suckers into machines to see what was on them, and the leading way of introducing a Trojan into an otherwise secure network.
Cold Secrets (Cold Justice Book 7) Page 19