Hot Pursuit

by Julie Ann Walker

  Five seconds became fifteen.

  Fifteen seconds stretched into thirty. Sonya didn’t dare breathe. Or scratch her nose, which, proving the universe was twisted as fuck, suddenly started itching.

  To her surprise, Grafton was the first to look away. He glanced at the tablet on his desk and continued to paraphrase the information on the screen. “But instead of helping your motherland become a nuclear power, you fell in with the Israeli Mossad, Iran’s sworn enemy.”

  At mention of Israel’s spy organization, Sonya winced. Luckily, neither Grafton nor Angel seemed to notice.

  “And during your five years working as a double agent inside Iran,” Grafton continued, lifting a finger, “you infected the computers that controlled their centrifuges with the perfidious Stuxnet virus, voiding the viability of their products.” Up went a second finger. “You personally assassinated the three Iranian scientists charged with miniaturizing warheads to fit on intercontinental ballistic missiles.” A third finger joined the first two. “And you rigged an explosion at a secret missile base in Tehran, killing three dozen Revolutionary Guards and reducing Iran’s stockpile of long-range Shebab rockets to a mound of twisted steel and rubble.”

  Grafton once again steepled his knobby-knuckled fingers under his chin. “But that time your cover was blown. Too many things added up for the Iranians and all of them pointed to you. Now…” Grafton narrowed his eyes. The flames in the fireplace cast dancing shadows across his dark complexion. It was August, but the Cornish coast was cool and damp, and the best way to combat both in the drafty, old manor house was with a constantly crackling fire. “This is the bit where it gets really interesting. Somehow, the Mossad was able to spirit you out of Iran. You fled to Europe, where a very talented plastic surgeon took this face…” Grafton swiped through documents until he stopped on a photograph. He lifted the tablet and angled it toward Angel. “And turned it into that face.” He pointed a finger between Angel’s hell-black eyes.

  Still nothing from Angel. Not a twitch of his lips. Not a flick of his eyelashes. The stranger who had appeared at Grafton Manor like a puff of dark smoke, all intangible and foreboding, was either very, very good, or he wasn’t who Grafton thought he was.

  Sonya would be shocked if it was the latter. Grafton didn’t make mistakes.

  At least he didn’t make them often. I mean, he hired me, didn’t he? She was determined to make that the biggest mistake of the rat bastard’s life.

  When Grafton laid the tablet atop the desk, she glanced at the picture on the screen and nearly swallowed her tongue. She must have betrayed herself with a noise because Grafton glanced at her, brow furrowed.

  “What?” He saw the direction of her stare and turned back to the photograph. “Haven’t you seen a photo of the Prince of Shadows before? Surely, given your previous job, you would have had occasion to come across one.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “As the nickname suggests, he was always cloaked in darkness.”

  “Ah. Well then, I’m fortunate to have this one, aren’t I? Perhaps I should consider giving Benton that raise he’s been on about for the last six months.” Grafton smiled when he referred to the young computer hacker he kept in his employ.

  Sonya barely heard him. She was too engrossed in studying the picture on the tablet.

  Grafton looked from her to the tablet and back again. “Do you recognize him?”

  “No.” She shook her head.

  The subtle quirk of Grafton’s right eyebrow said he wasn’t satisfied with that monosyllabic explanation.

  Taking a deep breath, she tried not to choke on the smell of Grafton’s woodsy cologne, which, by the way, seemed to linger in every damned room in the manor including her own. Gag. She swallowed her gorge and said, “The man in the photo looks like someone I knew a long time ago.”

  “Really?” Grafton seemed intrigued. That would never do.

  “Someone who died,” she clarified.

  Someone with the same slashing eyebrows and serious brow, she mused. Someone I loved.

  Although, the man pictured had a smaller nose and a more prominent jawline. Still…there were enough similarities to have her mind swirling with a hundred beautiful memories, and her heart aching with a loss that even after ten years remained razor-sharp.

  “Ah, Sonya…” Grafton’s smile turned faintly sardonic. “You are unlucky in love, are you not?”

  She blinked, realizing some of what she was feeling was written across her face. Carefully schooling her features, she shrugged a shoulder and resisted the urge to punch Grafton straight in his smug, aristocratic, bitch-ass nose. It was a daily battle.

  He chuckled, knowing how much she disliked him and taking great delight in the power he had over her, in the fact that she could say nothing to wipe the smile from his face. If she squeezed her hands any tighter behind her back, her nails would break the skin.

  After holding her gaze for a few seconds—both daring her to speak and simultaneously impressing upon her which one of them was in charge—he turned back to Angel.

  She breathed a sigh of relief.

  She had known Grafton was a bad man before being pressed into his service. But now? Well, now she knew he wasn’t just a bad man, he was the worst of men. She’d come to wonder if the devil himself had gotten tired of competing with Grafton in hell and had decided to dump the asshole on earth. Which was to say that to be the object of Grafton’s intense stare was to look upon the face of true evil. It always left her feeling a little corrupted. As if some of his depravity had wiggled in through her eye sockets and laid poisonous eggs inside her brain.

  Grafton tapped the photo, glancing at Angel. “Compliments to your plastic surgeon. Not that you weren’t an attractive man to begin with, but…” He let the sentence dangle, waiting for Angel to say something. Anything.

  The only thing Angel allowed was the lifting of one dark eyebrow.

  Sonya took the opportunity to study his face. Grafton was right. If, indeed, Angel was the man in the picture, then his plastic surgeon had been having a very good day when he or she carved Angel’s new mug.

  High cheekbones, broad forehead, solid slab of a jaw. His profile begged to be minted on coins.

  In fact, Angel was so gorgeous that Sonya’s ovaries rejoiced. But when he turned his unblinking stare on her for the briefest of seconds, it threatened to shrink her uterus and throw her into early menopause.

  Again, she was struck by the undeniable certainty that the man sitting across from Grafton was not someone to screw around with. Even though Grafton’s home library was immense, filled with two-story bookshelves packed with first editions and Sotheby’s quality antique furniture, Angel’s presence seemed to dwarf the space.

  Could he be the Prince of Shadows? The man revered by Western intelligence agencies for single-handedly keeping the Iranians from becoming an atomic power? Not to mention very likely saving the world from nuclear war?

  Grafton sighed, an indication he’d become frustrated with Angel’s reticence. As he swiped through the documents on his tablet again, Sonya knew he was poised to let loose with his coup de grâce. Hadn’t it happened the same way with her when he’d summoned her to a meeting at his house in St. Ives?

  “Very well,” he said. “I guess we’ll do this the hard way. How very cliché.” His lip curled with distaste, but Sonya knew he was loving every minute of this dangerous dance. Bringing people of quality, people of caliber, to their knees played to his ego and his continual search for power. Ever more power.

  Sliding his tablet across his desk, Grafton turned the device around so Angel could see the single line of numbers glowing at the top of the screen.

  “Am I supposed to know what that means?” Angel asked in his wrecked voice. The way he spoke was odd. Precise. If he was Iranian, it was impossible to tell. His accent and syntax gave nothing away.

  “
That is the number to the head of the Revolutionary Guards.” Grafton once again donned his sardonic smile. “I’m told they have ways of making men talk. Maybe they can get you to confess your true identity.”

  Angel’s impenetrable mask slipped ever so slightly. A muscle in his jaw twitched; hatred blazed to life in his eyes. “Who are you?” His tone was so low, so menacing, it sounded to Sonya like a warning of swift and painful death.

  No. Not a warning. A promise.

  She rethought his earlier title and renamed him Mr. Tall, Dark, and Deadly.

  “You know who I am. I’m Lord Asad Grafton, Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party and controlling owner of Land Stakes Corporation.”

  “No. Who are you really?”

  Sonya was tempted to yell, Spider! He’s the infamous Spider! Run! Run away before he catches you in his sticky web!

  Grafton’s smile turned positively venomous. “I’m the man who holds your life in his hands.”

  For a few ticks of the clock, the stranger who insisted on being called Angel refused to speak. When he finally did, his gruff voice had gone guttural. “What do you want from me?”

  “Ah.” Grafton sat back, looking altogether pleased with himself. “That’s easy. I want you to help me procure the fissile materials needed to build a nuclear weapon.”

  Sonya’s jaw unhinged so quickly she was surprised it didn’t hit the ground at her feet.

  Chapter 1

  Grafton Manor

  Present day...

  “You were born with a dagger in your mouth and a warrior’s heart beating in your chest.”

  Those were the words the ramsad—the head of the Mossad—had said to Angel the night he asked him to fake his own death and take over the identity of an Iranian university student. The night he had asked Angel to choose between the woman he loved and the stability of the world at large. The night he had explained to Angel that the mission to Iran would likely end with Angel dead or, if Angel did somehow survive, chances were good Angel would never see his homeland’s glistening, sundrenched shores again.

  Looking out over the expansive back lawn of Grafton’s home, ignoring the array of hulking guards Grafton had tasked with making sure he hadn’t left the premises since that initial, fateful meeting, Angel settled more snugly into the lush cushions of the deck chair. He took comfort in knowing friendly eyes were on him.

  To show those friendly eyes that he was A-okay, he lifted his face toward the weak English sun and studiously turned his thoughts away from the present. Letting them drift back to a happier time. To a time when he wasn’t Jamin “Angel” Agassi or Majid Abass, the Prince of Shadows. To a time when he was simply Mark Risa, the name his parents had given him at birth, a wet-behind-the-ears Mossad agent out to make his mark on the world and the spy community by hunting down a Palestinian terrorist responsible for bombing a synagogue in Jerusalem. To a time when an equally wet-behind-the-ears Interpol agent was assigned to help him…

  “Excuse me. Are you Mark Risa?”

  The voice that met his ears spoke delightfully accented Hebrew and was as smooth and as cultured as the chocolates they sold at Max Brenner back home. He turned his attention from the middle-aged woman walking her dog past the Café Constant on Rue Saint-Dominique and the man with the pencil-thin mustache who watched her from beneath hooded eyes, and looked up at the young woman standing beside his outdoor table. The sun was behind her, haloing her head. Even before he noticed her wide blue eyes, her strawberries-and-cream complexion, and her mischievous half smile, one word flitted through his brain.

  Pixie.

  Then she moved out of the sun, taking the seat across from him after a polite “May I?” and he realized she was anything but ethereal and spritely. She was a flesh-and-blood woman. Woman as in whoa-man! One good look at her had his libido sitting up and panting like a hungry dog in the summer heat.

  Down boy, he silently admonished, even as she extended her hand to shake.

  “I’m Sonya Butler.” The only indication she felt the same spine-tingling jolt of attraction that sizzled through him the instant their fingers touched was the slight flush that pinkened her cheeks.

  Glancing at their hands, he noted two things. One, compared to his oversized man paw, her hand looked ridiculously delicate. And two, she wore hot-pink fingernail polish.

  Hot-pink fingernail polish? What kind of Interpol agent does that?

  Sonya Butler, apparently.

  He decided to like her in that instant. She wasn’t trying to prove how tough she was or how serious she was. Those hot-pink fingernails said, I can be young and vibrant and sexy as hell and still catch the bad guys. Screw you if you don’t believe me.

  “Should we go somewhere to talk?” When she glanced around the busy cafe and the bustling Parisian sidewalk, he took the opportunity to study her graceful profile and the cascade of her honey-blond hair. She was, in a word, stunning. Not beautiful, per se. Her cheeks were a little too full, her nose a little too thin. But the twin sparks of intelligence and humor in her eyes, not to mention her lush mouth, were enough to stop a man in his tracks.

  Turning back to him, she frowned and asked, still in Hebrew, “You are Mark Risa, yes?”

  He realized he hadn’t said a single word since she’d arrived. Hell.

  “Sorry.” He shook his head, trying to jangle his wayward thoughts into some sort of order. “Yes. I’m Mark Risa. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sonya.”

  The half smile returned and he felt it like a punch in the gut.

  How unfortunate.

  This was his chance to make the ramsad proud, to prove the man hadn’t been wrong to recruit him straight out of the army and train him up to be one of the world’s most elite spies. He needed to focus on the mission, not the delicate line of Sonya’s neck or the too-fast pulse that beat next to the collar of her creamy blouse.

  “We have a few things to talk about.” She tapped the file folder under her arm, her blue eyes dilated as if she could read his thoughts.

  God, please don’t let her be able to read my thoughts.

  “Right.” He shoved up from the chair and motioned for her to follow him to an alley that arrowed around the side of the building. A set of exterior stairs showed the way to a second floor flat—one of the many safe houses or havens the Mossad kept around the world. He took the lead on the steps, not trusting himself with a view of her ass in those tight-fitting black trousers.

  “You have a lovely accent.” He fumbled with the lock. Her presence behind him on the narrow landing, not to the mention the smell of her, all fresh and sweet like freesia and apricot blossoms, hit the ignition switch on his lust and now his engine was really revving. “Where did you learn Hebrew?”

  “My father was a diplomat in Jerusalem for two years. And languages have always sort of come easy to me. Which, as you can imagine, made the jump from diplomat’s kid to working for Interpol a no-brainer.”

  “How many languages do you speak?” He dragged in a startled breath to find her close behind him when he glanced over his shoulder to pose the question. Close enough to touch if he wanted to.

  Oh, I want to!

  He didn’t believe in love at first sight. But he’d proven lust at first sight was a scientific certainty. Or at least a biological certainty.

  “Six,” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Six languages.” Again, that knowing look entered her blue eyes. No. Not blue. Up close he could see they were actually some color between blue and gray. A soft, gentle hue that contrasted starkly with those hot-pink fingernails.

  “Six, huh?” He shook his head, silently laughing at himself for being such a cliché, for being the guy who couldn’t hold a thought in his head for more than a second when an attractive woman waltzed into his sphere. If my ramsad could see me now, he’d shake his head in shame…“That’s two more than
I do.”

  “You speak four languages?” She canted her head. “Parlez-vous Français?”

  “No. No French. Only Hebrew, Arabic, English, and a little Yiddish.”

  “Hot diggity damn. Three out of four in common ain’t bad.” She’d switched to English and the slang made him smile. “No chance we’ll suffer a failure to communicate.”

  He spoke in English as well. “Don’t tell me you speak Yiddish.”

  She laughed. It was a low, husky sound that had goose bumps rippling over his skin. “No. Arabic.”

  Just when he thought it was impossible for her to intrigue him more…

  “I lived in Jordan for three years while my father did a stint at the embassy in Amman.” Pushing past him when he finally managed to unlock the door, her ass—that ass he had earnestly avoided—brushed ever-so-slightly past his happy place.

  He barely stifled a groan.

  This is so unfortunate, he thought again, briefly closing his eyes, trying to get his one-track mind on the mission and off the woman as he followed her into the sparsely furnished flat.

  Sonya didn’t hesitate to make herself at home—he liked that about her too. She pulled out a chair at the tiny bistro table fitted into the corner of the kitchen. The window was open, and the smell of the fresh herbs that grew in a window box next door drifted around them.

  Opening the file folder, Sonya slid the top sheet of paper toward him. “Do you prefer English, Hebrew, or Arabic?” She was still speaking English.

  “Dealer’s choice.”

  “English it is.” She smiled, looking right into his eyes, not trying to hide the spark of interest shining in hers. “Your English accent is a total smexymelt.”

  “Pardon?”

  She laughed. “Smutty and sexy and makes me want to melt.”

  Before that sentence could sink in and make him hornier than he already was—Not possible!—she sobered and added, “This is all the information the Préfecture de police de Paris could find on your target. I’ll continue to work with them to facilitate whatever you need from here on out, but for now, this is what you have to go on.”