by Dana Marton
She’d wanted them to think that Jake had gotten on a plane, but they’d caught up with her at the old palace. “Gabe Cannon is with them now.”
Jake sat up, his forehead wrinkling as he considered the news. After a long minute, he shook his head. “Don’t go anywhere near him. We can’t afford to trust anyone at this stage. If they caught you--”
She couldn’t bring herself to confess that Gabe already had. A miracle that the night hadn’t turned out worse.
About twenty mercenaries were currently hunting them. One team searched the city; the other secured the railroad bridge and Ponte della Liberta, the five kilometers long Liberty Bridge that connected Venice to the mainland for car and bus traffic.
Jasmine swallowed her food without tasting it. She needed to find a way to outsmart those men, and she needed to find it quickly. Today’s plan had failed. She would have to come up with something better for tomorrow.
Jake finished his meager ration and hobbled over to a window, looking out into the night. Mandy slid down onto the mattress. Normally, she had the most energy among the three of them. And the biggest mouth. But not tonight.
Jasmine reached out to feel her forehead, then squeezed her eyes shut for a second, a sense of hopelessness washing over her. “You’re burning up with fever.”
“I’ll be fine by morning.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Jake’s knuckles turned white, he gripped the windowsill so tight. Didn’t take a psychic to figure out that he blamed himself for putting them into this situation.
“I didn’t want to be any trouble,” Mandy said with a small voice.
The sight of her vivacious, chirpy little sister being beaten down like this just about killed Jasmine.
Jake hobbled over to them and sat on the corner of the mattress. Although he would never say it, his leg couldn’t support him longer than a few minutes at a time. He pulled the Ziploc bag from his pocket and passed a pill to Mandy who raised her head and swallowed it obediently.
They both needed so much more than that. Her siblings need real medical care, preferably a hospital and the sooner, the better.
Jake lay down and gathered Mandy to him, his own teeth chattering, his face drawn. And as she looked at them, Jasmine had to accept at last that he wasn’t going to get better any day now and take charge again. He wasn’t going to lead them out of here to safety.
She had to do it.
Gabe Cannon’s blue eyes flashed into her mind, the way they’d turned silver in the moonlight. They stood out in contrast to his dark lashes and dark hair, a spellbinding combination of coloring that had wreaked havoc with her teenage heart. Thank God, she was a lot more mature now. She wasn’t going to let him bamboozle her this time.
She shoved the last of her food into her mouth and slipped her flashlight back into her pocket as she stood, knowing that what she was about to do would either save them or bury them.
Jake frowned. “Where are you going?”
Better that he didn’t know. He might try to stop her. “You both need something for that fever.”
Her brother held her gaze for a long moment. “Be careful.”
“Take the gun,” Mandy offered from under the blanket.
“You keep it. If anyone else but me comes through this door, you shoot. Okay?” She hated putting that kind of burden on her sister, but she could find no other way to make sure they were safe. Jake could barely move his right arm, let alone aim a gun with it. She gave them her most confident smile before she slipped away.
At one point, out of sheer desperation, she’d tracked the men who hunted her brother to the pensione they rented on the main island. She’d wanted to know what kind of enemy she faced. She’d gotten the answer to that: overwhelming.
She had promised herself she would stay away from the place.
Of course, back then she hadn’t known that one of the hunters was Gabe.
~~~***~~~
Chapter Three
Gabe kept his eyes on his laptop, giving no sign that he’d noticed the woman who’d been observing him through his window for the last ten minutes. Jasmine.
Brent should have listened to him when he’d recommended setting up perimeter security. But the team leader was too arrogant to think that anyone could ever turn the tables on him.
He made a show of yawning and stretching. His gun hidden in the desk drawer. She would have seen if he tried to retrieve the weapon, so he simply turned the key with a slight motion then palmed it. At least now he knew she wouldn’t be able to get to it while he left the room in the hopes of luring her in.
He scratched his chest, stood and headed for the bathroom. Going to the window would have scared her off, and his goal was to make her feel as secure as possible. Maybe Tekla was ready to turn himself in and sent her as a messenger.
He closed the bathroom door behind him, waited two minutes then flushed the toilet. She would be pushing the window open, using the noise he made to mask any possible creaking. After a few more seconds, he turned on the tap. She would use that to move into the room, knowing he’d turn the tap off when he was done, giving her warning before he came out of the bathroom.
He left the water running and put his hand on the doorknob. Then he slammed the door open and burst forward.
He registered the empty room a split second before she dropped on him from the storage shelf above the bathroom door, nearly knocking him off his feet.
“Hey. Stop that.” He tried to twist to get hold of her, but his temple caught her sharp elbow and he saw stars. He staggered toward the bed and flipped her down at last, but she managed to hook her leg behind his neck and he ended up on the bottom somehow, with her sitting on his chest.
Her wild, shoulder-length waves framed cheeks pink from effort, her chest heaving as she leaned forward to pin his hands next to his head on each side. She ended up with her fine breasts inches from his lips.
He could have subdued her in two moves, but he liked her on top of him. She might be more likely to answer his questions if she thought she was in control of the situation. If their position sent some heat zinging through him, she didn’t need to know about it.
He relaxed his muscles and gave her a thorough once over now that he had her in a lit room and could fully see her. The barely disguised triumph in her eyes, the color of aged Bourbon, amused him.
“Anything I can help you with, Jasmine?”
She looked nothing like the gangly teenager he’d met ten years ago. She had filled out in all the right places and turned into a beautiful woman. A woman who reminded him that he’d been lonely way too long. He would have given a lot right now if she weren’t related to his mission and came to him simply to spend the night with him.
She pulled back to search his face. “Why are you chasing Jake? He was your friend once.”
Oh, hell, nothing in life was ever simple. “My friends don’t turn rogue.”
“He was framed.” She spoke with full-conviction, her eyes flashing.
“Your brother killed three men. One of them was a U.S Army officer.”
Her generous lips narrowed to a thin line. “You don’t know the circumstances.”
She had gumption, passion and loyalty in spades. He felt a twinge of respect, and a twinge of something else, too, but he was going to ignore that. “So what changed between the roof and now? Why run away if you were just going to come back to me?”
“Now I have the upper hand.” She allowed a small smile.
He watched her for a second. “And you think that since I knew your brother at one point, and because I didn’t turn you over to the others on the roof, I am the weak link on the team.”
She stayed silent, apparently smart enough to know that insulting him wouldn’t gain her any favors.
“Does your brother always send you to fight his battles?”
“He doesn’t know I’m here.” She hesitated for a moment before she went on. “He was set up. He knows something and people want to kill him fo
r it.”
“Let me guess, he discovered a vast conspiracy.” He didn’t bother to keep the skepticism from his voice.
Annoyance tightened her kissable mouth again. “I don’t know what he discovered. All I know is that he discovered it in Lahedeh. He thinks the less I know the safer I am.”
“Maybe he’d tell me?” he suggested, ready to finish this mission and be back stateside to help his sister for a while with his nieces before the team was given their next assignment. They’d been tracking Tekla all over the continent for an eternity, but they should be done soon now that they had the man trapped in Venice.
“He’s not anywhere around here.”
“Right. Then why did you do your mama-bird-trying-to-draw-the-snake-from-the-nest imitation and lead us across town tonight?”
Her chin came up. She did have a cute chin. Also very kissable.
He forced his gaze up to her eyes. What in hell was wrong with him? “So what is it, exactly, that you want from me, Jasmine?”
“Distract those idiots you work with so I can get away from Venice and find a safer place.”
“You mean you and your brother?”
She held his gaze, her expression giving nothing away.
“He shouldn’t have dragged you into all this.” An unpardonable act of selfishness as far as Gabe was concerned.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He gave her a smile to throw her off balance then flipped her, reversing their positions, surprised by the surge of need he couldn’t even acknowledge let alone act on. “I know you’re not going anywhere until you tell me where he is.”
Once Tekla was in custody, the pressure would be off her and she would be safe. Not that she showed any appreciation for him looking out for her.
She fought their change of position, stilling only when someone rapped on the door. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wide with alarm, the tip of her tongue darting out in a nervous gesture to moisten her lips.
He stifled a groan.
“Brent wants to see everyone in his room,” Troy said outside.
Gabe watched a string of emotions flicker across Jasmine’s face. Here came a moment of decision for him, and she knew it. He could turn her over to the others, and they could use her as bait to draw Tekla here. If it weren’t for that kill order, he would have.
But Brent had pulled out all stops for this op. Maybe because he was ready to go home, or perhaps because he was starting to lose face over Tekla’s ability to evade him this long. He seemed ready to end the op by whatever means necessary, a decision that didn’t sit well with Gabe.
Whatever her brother had done, Jasmine wasn’t guilty.
“On my way,” he called out to Troy.
“Let me go.” Jasmine resumed her struggling as soon as the man’s footsteps had faded in the hallway.
Gabe only considered the request for a second. He wasn’t going to lose her again. He needed her to take him to Tekla. Bringing Tekla in seemed the only solution. A peaceful handover would ensure that the man lived long enough to stand trial for his crimes. Once he was in custody, the pressure would be off his family and they would be safe. And with their mission accomplished, Gabe’s team could go home to the U.S. and collect their payment.
The chase needed to end before someone innocent got injured. And for that, he needed Jasmine’s cooperation. But to get that, he needed more time with her. For now, restraining her without hurting her was the key.
Of course, she fought him every step of the way once she realized what he was trying to do. He could barely get his belt off to tie her right hand to the headboard. Then he grabbed a curtain tieback and secured her other hand with that.
She kicked at him, her shoe connecting with his solar plexus and knocking the air from his lungs.
He scowled at her. “I wouldn’t do that again.”
She kicked lower this time, her foot slamming into him way too close to a place it had no business being.
“That’s it.” Two more curtain ties and her feet were tied, too, each to a bedpost.
Fury burned in her eyes, then desperation as she struggled against her restraints more and more violently. She didn’t seem to be aware that she was scraping her wrists raw.
“Stop that.” He bent to hold her still, to snap her out of her frenzy. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
But she didn’t seem able to stop. Panic had pushed her beyond reason. He swore under his breath. She wasn’t a trained soldier, conditioned to conquer her fear in a situation like this. But he couldn’t let her go. She would flee the second he left.
If one of the others caught her…
And they would catch her. Right here, in another minute, if she didn’t keep quiet.
“Just hang on for a second.” He grabbed for the duffle bag at the foot of the bed and rummaged through it for his emergency kit.
“This is going to help you calm down.” He pulled the syringe of sedative and popped the cap, pushed the drug into her arm in the same motion. He tried to control the dosage. The full phial was calibrated for a large-built man, a fighter who might be twice her weight. “Stay still.”
But she was beyond following orders. She swore at him violently and jerked forward, causing him to push in more of the drug than he’d intended. Dammit.
Boots scuffed outside.
“You’ll be safe here. I’ll lock you in,” he told her as he headed for the door.
Her eyes flashed with fury. “My brother is going to kill you for this.”
~~~***~~~
Chapter Four
Ten of the twenty team members were in Brent’s suite, battle-hardened soldiers perching on every available surface. The team leader had them divided from the beginning: Team A searching the islands, Team B guarding all avenues of exit, making sure Tekla didn’t slip through and sneak away to the mainland.
Gabe listened to Brent’s briefing, his mind only half on the meeting, the other half wondering if Jasmine was all right back in his room.
“Got a call from my local cop. They’ve been having a wave of unusual petty crime lately. Not the souvenir-filching tourists, which they’re used to.” Brent opened his laptop and read aloud the list of dates, locations and items. Food, water, a blanket from one balcony, shampoo stolen from an open bathroom window. The list kept going.
A couple of the men snorted when Brent got to knitting needles.
He ignored them and went on. “I had my guy look at security camera footage. One woman seems to have been around most of these locations at about the right time. He sent me a headshot. Looks like the photo we have of Tekla’s older sister.” He didn’t sound the least surprised.
“Did you know she might be here?” Gabe asked with all the nonchalance he possessed.
“I had a suspicion.” Brent watched him carefully. “I sent some friends to that aunt’s house in Kansas. They found nobody there. Not even the aunt.”
And when was that, Gabe wanted to ask, but didn’t want to seem suspiciously interested.
Oh, hell. A sudden chill ran down his spine. What if they were all here?
Three women in the middle of all this--a sure recipe for disaster. He would have liked to grab Tekla by the shoulders and shake sense into the man. What was he thinking putting his family at risk like this?
“So how do we know Soremo is the right island?” Troy asked, not unreasonably. One hundred seventeen small islands made up the city of Venice.
“Got security camera footage of the woman hopping on the water busses when she’s done scavenging on the main island, but no pictures of her getting off anywhere.”
“Maybe she swims,” one of the guys suggested as a joke.
“She gets off at a station that doesn’t have a security camera,” Gabe offered.
That earned him a look of approval from the boss. “Exactly. Away from the tourist center. She’s hiding somewhere in a residential district. We find her, we find her brother.”
“There are other
residential islands besides Soremo.”
“The water buses she takes when she disappears all have their final stop here.” Brent stabbed his index finger at the map spread on the desk, at the red X he’d drawn earlier.
“We’ve been out all night. Nobody got more than a wink of sleep.” Gabe scrambled to think of an excuse to hold them back. If his suspicions were right and Tekla’s other sister and his aunt were with him… They didn’t deserve to become casualties.
To his relief, Brent nodded. “People are getting up and getting ready for work right now. We’ll wait an hour. By then, most of them will be gone and the houses will be empty.”
He looked at his men before he continued. “The B Team will be at the showdown with us. I don’t want to leave anything to chance on this one. Be ready at oh seven thirty. Better get some sleep until then. I want everyone ready for this.”
He paused. “Tekla is considered armed and dangerous. You’re authorized to use whatever force necessary.”
Gabe shifted in his seat. “What about the sister?”
Brent shrugged. “She needs to stay out of the way if she knows what’s good for her. We’re facing a seasoned killer here.” He swept his gaze around the room. “If she tries to help him and gets caught in the crossfire, I don’t think we’ll be catching much flak over it.”
Brent’s need to catch Tekla seemed a little too over the top, he pulled out too many stops. If he had a personal agenda, Gabe sure would have liked to know what it was.
He stood aside and let the others pour out into the hallway, trying to figure out how he could convince Jasmine to trust him and take him back to Tekla, how to convince Tekla to give himself up so his family wouldn’t get hurt.
“We’ll have him today,” he told Brent, buying time until the others cleared out of the hallway.
He didn’t want them to catch a glimpse of Jasmine on his bed when he opened his door. “We could be shipping out of here by tomorrow. Not that being in Venice is a hardship. I was expecting battlefield combat when I signed up.”