On the Edge

by Shannon Stacey

  Savakis turned the little computer over in his hands, inspecting it. “How will I get this back to you?”

  “Keep it hidden away. If you ever get stuck on a print, you can call the number I gave you and my people will run it down for you.”

  It would be a small favor compared to the one he was doing for her.

  “And your people, Sofia?” he asked quietly.

  She rested her hand over his. “They’re the good guys, Christopher. I give you my word.”

  A few minutes later they dropped him off the same way they’d picked him up, and then the driver headed for Schinias.

  Even though Tony and Charlotte didn’t intend to be in the country long, they’d rented a small, two-bedroom villa in the upscale neighborhood. Privacy was a nice benefit, but the decision had been made mostly to protect their cover. If Sofia had come to play in her old stomping grounds, she wouldn’t do it from a hotel room, no matter how upscale. Sofia hadn’t been a hotel room kind of girl.

  They were barely aware of their Aegean paradise surroundings as they unpacked their gear and started planning. They ate a light meal while they worked and drank liters of bottled water to keep hydrated and help fend off jet lag. It wasn’t long before the pristine showcase of a home was littered with paper and high-tech gadgets.

  It looked like precisely what it was—a war room.

  Anetakis first. They needed to verify he was, in fact, Ludka’s employer, and find out the German’s location, if possible. Anetakis was their guy. And if they could destroy, or at least seriously disrupt, the Greek’s criminal activities, more the better.

  “We should have brought more agents,” Tony said, not for the first time. “We could have found a way to take him out.”

  “We’ve gone over this, Tony. First, we kept this small for a reason. Until we know exactly who we can and can’t trust, we’re not bringing anybody else in. Second, we can’t get to Hector. That’s why Hector has to get to me.”

  And every time they came to that part of the plan she and Gallagher had hashed out, Tony tried to shut it down. He’d have no part of her going into Anetakis’s estate alone.

  “That’s not a good plan,” he stated. Again, not for the first time.

  “Nobody comes up with a more solid plan than Gallagher and you know it. This is what he says is our best—if not only—shot.”

  “Bullshit. I can’t believe he’d agree to just hand you over to Anetakis after the history you have with the guy.”

  Only the fact the house was rented kept Charlotte from picking up a vase and chucking it at his thick skull. “It’s because of that history we can get to him. And maybe Gallagher’s willing to hand me over because he has faith in me. He knows I’m a professional.”

  “You don’t do that anymore.”

  She revisited the vase chucking. She could afford to replace it. “He knows I’m a Devlin Group professional, Tony. He believes I can handle myself.”

  He stood and started pacing, his boots making tiny slapping sounds against the exquisite marble flooring. “Not in the field. You don’t have experience in the field.”

  Charlotte sighed and set down the diamond brooch into which she’d been working a miniscule GPS device. “Being in the field is a matter of place, not experience. I’ve been with you guys through some pretty hellacious clusterfucks, you know. I was on comm when Alex shot Grace in London. I talked Carmen out of that warehouse in Bolivia. I was on with you when the Chavez job went to shit. That was me, Tony, every step of the way with you.”

  “From a goddamn desk!” He stopped pacing and shoved his fingers through his hair. “I can’t let you do it this way.”

  “Then you’re out.” She said the words with no emotion and steeled herself against his reaction. “All I need is a guy who can wear a suit, shoot a gun, and will take orders. Donovan or O’Brien can be here tomorrow. I’ll make the call now.”

  She stood and began walking toward the bar where her cell phone sat in its charger, but wasn’t at all surprised when he caught her arm and spun her around.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  “I’m the bitch who runs the joint, Casavetti.” She shook off his hand. “With Alex down, I’m in charge, with Gallagher backing me up. He chose you for this mission because he trusts you with my life. But there’s more to this job then just protecting me, and if I think you’re the wrong man for the job, I can and will replace you.”

  She could see the fight drain out of his face. She didn’t like playing that card—she had too much respect for the man to like it—but it had to be done.

  He looked her square in the eye, and his gaze was cold and flat. “I’m the right man for the job…boss.”

  His tone sliced through her, but she didn’t flinch. “Fine. Today’s pretty much a loss—jet lag, prep work. During the day tomorrow I’m going to visit a few old haunts. Cafes and boutiques and such. Quick in-and-outs just to get some buzz going. Tomorrow evening we’re going to grab some supper at a restaurant Hector and I used to frequent, followed by drinks and dancing at his favorite club.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Stop being an ass.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  It was too much. “You know, I thought maybe you and I could get a little something going, but I’m finding the reality just isn’t as warm and fuzzy as the fantasy.”

  At least his gaze wasn’t cold and flat anymore. “You’re not a warm and fuzzy kind of girl, darlin’.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re…you’re like a Ferrari. Every guy wants to take a Ferrari for a spin. But when it comes time to drive something every day—for better or worse—a guy goes looking for a nice sedan or maybe an SUV.”

  Charlotte had way too much experience with men to give him a glimpse of how deeply those words cut. So she was what…too fast? Too flashy—too high maintenance—to settle down with? And where the hell had for better or worse come from? It was a retracted proposition, not a damn proposal.

  “The truth is,” she said in a husky voice, “a lot of men think they want a Ferrari, but when they finally get a chance to drive one, they find out they don’t have the balls to handle her.”

  She spun on her heel and made her grand exit, straight into her bedroom, and slammed the door behind her. She’d made her point, so there was no sense in belaboring it. Walking out the front door of the villa would have been preferable, but she wasn’t stupid enough to go out without her “security”.

  Tony knocked a mere few seconds later, barely giving her enough time to mask her expression again before he opened the door and stepped in. Charlotte knew she should give him hell for the intrusion, but the biting words died on her tongue. He was already on the ragged edge—tense, exhausted, off balance—and he was letting her see it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, shoving his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I shouldn’t have said that.”

  She was keenly aware he hadn’t said he didn’t mean it. Only that he shouldn’t have said it. But she had enough emotional garbage on her plate right now, so she gave him an easy out. “You’re just done in. You were undercover a long time, then flying from Texas to New York, almost getting blown up, then turning around and flying to Greece takes a toll on a person.”

  He wanted to say more. It was in his body language and his eyes. And Charlotte wasn’t sure she wanted to hear anything else tonight. Too much had happened and too much was going to happen. Getting some sleep was the wisest course of action for both of them right now.

  Tony cleared his throat. “I said it because I really want to take you to bed and that’s a bad idea. So maybe if I’m an asshole, you can muster up enough willpower for both of us.”

  Charlotte took a deep breath, hoping her body—which was all for being wanted—and her mind—which agreed that was a really bad idea—would come to some kind of agreement before she opened her mouth. No such luck. “Th
at would…complicate things.”

  But she didn’t totally shut him down. Here she was on very thin ice, and what did she do? Jump up and down. And he was looking to her for willpower?

  “I really want to touch you,” Tony said with a simplicity ratcheted up a notch by the hunger in his eyes.

  “Then why don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I think…I don’t want you to think I think you’re an easy lay because of what you used to do.”

  “I think you’re thinking too much.”

  He paused, just for a beat. “You think?”

  She laughed, he joined in, and the tension eased.

  “What I think,” she said, “is that we should both get some work done—separately. I need to call Marge and see what the chances are of getting that satellite feed over Anetakis’s house. You go do whatever it is you do to get ready. Then we can get some sleep and we’ll see how we feel when we’re not delirious from exhaustion.”

  “I’ll still want to touch you.”

  “I’ll still want to let you.”

  The hunger and tension flared back to life in his gaze for a moment, but then he turned away from her. “Goodnight, Charlotte.”

  “Sweet dreams, Tony.”

  He groaned as he closed the door behind him, and when she finally fell into bed, Charlotte—despite the events of the last two days—fell asleep smiling.

  —

  Tony wasn’t smiling at all when they stepped into Anetakis’s favorite nightclub the next night.

  According to Marge there was no change in Rossi’s condition. Danny had been sent to a hotel with his grandparents so Grace could be sedated.

  Savakis had identified Jones’s body, and earlier Tony’d had to put it on a flight to New York. One of the agents would meet his coffin there and then escort Jones home to his family and help with the funeral arrangements.

  Now he had to watch Charlotte pretend to be a high-class whore so she could be kidnapped by a dangerous criminal who was killing Devlin Group agents. And that was Plan A.

  All in all, it made for a shitty day and he’d rather have been back in Texas getting shot at.

  But, holy hell, Charlotte looked good. She was wearing an almost illegally short black number that accented her killer breasts and almost impossibly long legs. She’d left the blonde wig down, so the tiny black straps of her dress peeked through her hair. And she had on black heels he couldn’t even believe she could walk in, never mind walk like a runway model.

  Right now he was standing at attention, watching her dance with an ugly, fat and unholy rich man who traveled in Anetakis’s circle. Charlotte had told Tony the guy had been a former client of hers before she hooked up with Hector, and he seemed to be really enjoying having his hands all over her again.

  When one of the playboy’s hands slid even further south and cupped her ass, Tony started getting twitchy. Then the man’s fingers flexed, squeezing, and Tony’s trigger finger flexed in response. He hoped her reappearance had been phoned in to Anetakis already, because he really wanted to shoot somebody.

  This bodyguard gig was a bitch. Not only because it required hours of standing around looking like a bad-ass. Not only because it put him in a passive role. But because he had to be invisible to Charlotte—he couldn’t talk to her, touch her. He had to blend in with the damn woodwork.

  Charlotte threw her head back and laughed at whatever sweet nothings her dance partner had whispered in her ear. The subtle lighting played across her bare throat and danced in the diamond pin accenting her cleavage.

  He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. The cut of his coat and the shadows probably concealed the physical evidence of his torture, but he was having a hell of a time keeping the bland, expressionless face that was part of the job description.

  Finally the song ended and the man removed his hands from Charlotte before Tony gave in to the urge to hurt him. She drifted back toward Tony, glancing briefly at him. Then she did a double take. Dammit, he must be slipping if she could read his face that well.

  She murmured something to the man, who dug into his pocket and then handed her a keycard. She began walking in the direction of the restrooms and Tony fell into step at her elbow. She walked right past the line for the ladies’, easily navigating a mini-labyrinth of hallways.

  “Where are we going?” he murmured. He didn’t like going anywhere blind.

  “Private VIP restrooms. We need to have a little chat.”

  A little lecture was more like it. A deserved one, no less, but one he wasn’t in the mood for.

  Charlotte slid the card into a slot and he heard the door lock pop. He followed her into the most overblown, fussy bathroom he’d ever seen. They didn’t get little one-armed couches in any bathroom he’d ever used.

  The door had barely latched behind them when Charlotte turned on him. “You need to get your shit together, Casavetti. Drop the pissed off, jealous lover act before you totally blow it.”

  “It’s not an act.” He pushed her until her back pressed against the gaudy wallpaper and she had to tilt her head to look up at him. It was the same move he’d used on her at the plane, and he liked the way she reacted to it—the hot flush across her face and the way the rise and fall of her breasts quickened. “The fact that every man who touched you tonight is still breathing is a testament to my willpower, darlin’.”

  “We talked about this, Tony. You’re going to let me do my job, remember?”

  Her job was to sit in her plush office chair and coordinate Devlin Group agents. It was not her job to throw herself half-naked into a pool of rich piranhas while he sat on the edge sunning himself.

  “I’ll let you do it, but there’s something I want to do first.”

  Her eyes widened and she shook her head. “Not now, Tony. He’s already going to punish me for leaving him. If he smells sex on me, he’ll really hurt me.”

  That thought pretty much cured the raging erection problem, but it didn’t deter him because he wasn’t talking about sex.

  “I just want to kiss you,” he told her. “Because whether it’s smart or not, we already have a little something going. I’ll let you do your job, but I want to know you’re doing it with my brand on you, darlin’.”

  She gave him that saucy grin he hadn’t seen since she picked him up at the airport. “It’d have to be a pretty searing kiss to leave a brand.”

  He slid a hand behind the base of her skull and used his thumb to tilt her head for him. When his lips met hers, he felt the sizzle all the way to his damn toes. Her mouth was soft and sweet, and she felt so damn good in his arms. She trembled and he resisted the urge to press her against the wall and bury himself in her—to hell with Plan A.

  Instead, he broke off the kiss and wrapped her up close to him. The top of her head rested against his cheek, and he turned his face to plant a quick kiss there.

  “I can do this, Tony. I know it’s hard for you, not being in control of the situation, but we’ll be okay.”

  “When this is over, I’m going to make you forget you ever had to do it,” he promised.

  —

  Hector Anetakis cursed the rollercoaster of a day that was chewing a hole in his stomach. He’d had to walk out of the meeting with Konrad Ludka before he vomited on the traitor’s shoes.

  Not only were the majority of the Devlin Group agents still alive, but the agency’s private jet had landed in Athens the day before.

  They were coming for him.

  Then, today he’d received the call he’d been waiting years for. Sofia had returned to Greece. For the first time since those bastard agents had stolen her away, Hector felt almost like a whole man. Almost. He needed her back.

  Now he stood in the back of the club, his stomach churning, looking for Sofia.

  Then he saw her.

  With a man.

  Sourness rose in the back of his throat. The man was Tony Casavetti. Ludka had sent him photos of the primary agents, and there was no mistaking this one.
And she was with them.

  Somewhere in the pit of his ruined stomach, he’d known it. The timing couldn’t be ignored. Things Konrad Ludka had said. But he’d almost convinced himself the bastards had forced her here and were using her as a pawn to get to him.

  He should have known better. But she would pay. Pay dearly.

  Hector started to move. His men knew what to do. All that mattered to him now was that he was about to his hands on Sofia.

  Chapter Five

  Charlotte realized their plan was succeeding mere minutes after they exited the restroom area. Even without meeting his gaze directly, knowing Hector Anetakis was in the room shook her and she almost stumbled. Tony put a hand on her back to steady her, but she stepped away, schooling her expression to show her dismay at an employee touching her. The next few minutes would be the most crucial she’d ever suffered and every look, every gesture mattered.

  “He’s here,” she said in a low voice, while making a sweeping hand gesture toward the bar.

  “Be careful,” he hissed, and then he turned toward the bar, ostensibly to get his employer a drink. It was important he not look back. He needed to be oblivious and, above all, nonthreatening. If he took himself out of the equation, Anetakis’s men might not bother with him.

  Charlotte started walking again, making her way toward the gentleman she’d left behind. The VIP key card was still clutched in her hand, but her fingers were so numb she barely felt it there. Hector was walking her way, on a course to intercept.

  When the timing was right, she met his gaze. Looked surprised. Pleased.

  He didn’t even speak. He simply stepped up beside her, hooked his arm through hers and kept walking. Charlotte turned, knowing anybody in her situation would be expected to call out to her bodyguard.

  “I’ll kill him,” Anetakis said.

  She faced front and let him lead her out the main entrance, down the steps and into a waiting limo. He shoved her in, and Charlotte’s heart sank. If he was being rough in public, he was exceptionally upset.

  The car pulled away from the club while she concentrated on hiding her concern for Tony. Hector’s high temper led her to suspect he might know why she and Tony were in Athens and who they worked for, but he didn’t have to know she cared on a personal level.