Nicoli couldn’t help but stand. The pile of cash in front of him would be enough to get his brother out of prison and for them to live on for the rest of their lives. Prison in Russia doesn’t work like it does in America. If you had enough money, you could get anyone out, no matter the crime. His brother had been in prison for five years of his three life sentences, for murders that Nicoli himself had committed. Since everyone thought Nicoli to be dead, they pinned all of it on his brother. It had haunted Nicoli every night in his dreams since the day they put him away. Nicoli promised his brother he would get him out or die trying. Now was his chance.
“I will give you this, and your freedom from your debt to me, if you kill Xander King. But I must have proof. You must bring him to me and kill him in front of me. Nothing else will be acceptable.”
Nicoli had always been the exact opposite of an emotional man. But the thought of freedom with his brother—the only family he had ever known—almost overwhelmed him. And he and his new love could live happily ever after. He would use every ounce of his twenty years of the highest levels of training to get this job done. Xander King’s days were officially numbered.
Dragov took a sip of vodka.
“I see this means a lot to you.”
Nicoli had no response.
“But let me tell you this. You don’t succeed? I kill you, your brother, and that pretty little brunette of yours. Understand?”
Nicoli did understand. Perfectly. Nothing in his degenerate, self-serving cockroach of a life had ever, nor would ever, mean more than this . . .
Killing Xander King.
9
Apparently Vigilante Justice Is a Team Game
During the entire flight back to Langley, Virginia—CIA headquarters—Sam had the cabin television tuned to Fox News. Xander couldn’t stand mainstream news. You can’t get real news from biased news stations. Those who formed their opinions of the world from the things they learned by watching this slanted programming did nothing but make themselves look ignorant—no matter their political views. Mr. Rogers knew more about what was actually going on in the world than the sheep that blindly tuned into this type of programming. Xander knew the lies firsthand from all of the black-ops missions he carried out. They always reported on the outcomes of his missions like they were stating facts, when in fact they were the furthest thing from the truth. The reports about what happened at Scripps Mercy Hospital in sunny San Diego yesterday morning were just another shining example of how ill-informed American people could be if this was their only news source. It was reported as fact that the attack on Scripps Mercy—like every other attack these days—was an act of terrorism. And it was reported as such only because some random “terrorist cell” took credit for the attack using their Twitter account.
By the mercy of God himself, the plane landed in Virginia, and they no longer had to watch any more bullshit news. Unfortunately, the next thing Xander had to do was say good-bye to Natalie. Something that only got harder to do, not easier. She wanted to stay, but she had halted filming her new movie as long as the production company would let her without throwing an absolute conniption. It would take a while before the look on her face when she said good-bye was no longer absolutely seared into Xander’s mind. She was hurting. They had talked for an hour on the jet about how to proceed. They both wanted the same things, but like Natalie said, timing is everything. And this couldn’t possibly be a worse time for a burgeoning romance. Natalie knew it, Xander knew it, and so they were going to do their best to leave it at that. If their paths crossed, they would cherish a moment in each other’s arms. Anything more than that put Natalie in danger, and that was not something Xander was willing to risk.
Their entire conversation was of course private; however, it’s impossible to keep completely private in a confined, enclosed space. Much to Sarah Gilbright’s delight. She wasn’t trying to listen in, but she wasn’t going to put on headphones either. While it wasn’t the easiest thing to hear—how much they clearly cared for each other—Sarah couldn’t be happier about the decision to let fate bring them together if the timing ever were right. Sarah had nothing against Natalie, she seemed like a nice enough person, but as far as Xander King was concerned, she liked him uncommitted and untangled. Sarah would just wait for the right moment to show him what he really needed, and when that time was right, you’d best believe she would pounce like a kitten on a ball of yarn.
The four of them—Xander, Kyle, Sam, and Sarah—all waited impatiently outside the office of CIA Director Thomas Manning’s office. Their main goal—Xander’s goal—was to talk Manning into leaving them the hell alone and letting him carry on as he always had. Sarah’s first goal was to make sure she still had a job. Second, she would try to go along with Xander’s goal, but she knew Manning would never go for it. So anything north of grounding Xander and her not being fired would ultimately be good enough for her.
“Xander, were you able to contact your sister, Helen?” Sam broke the silence between them. All around them phones were ringing and people were buzzing. Apparently, business was good at the CIA. Or bad, depending on how you look at it. The complications that Xander’s recent stunts caused for the CIA had only further swirled the beehive, and Sam knew this would be evident when the queen bee himself—Director Manning—began his tirade.
“Yes, I spoke with her last night. Thank you, Sam. She said the men you sent were parked out front and back of her house. She doesn’t understand or like why they are there, but she said she felt safe. That’s all that matters to me.”
“How’s Kaley doing?”
“Growing like a weed. Her favorite word is ‘again.’ She loves yelling it, particularly when I make the mistake of tossing her, spinning her, or holding her upside down.” Xander smiled, as he always did when he thought of his niece.
“Are you talking about your niece?” Sarah asked.
“I am. She’s five years of absolute adorable.”
“That’s sweet.”
What wasn’t sweet was the way the door to Manning’s office flew open. All four of their smiles immediately shifted. Kyle’s shifted to fear, Sam’s became solemn, Sarah looked away nervously, and Xander’s went to five-alarm-fury. No words were spoken and Xander was already preparing for a fight. Manning walked out. He was a bulldog of a man—short, stout, and slobbering mad, his face permanently red and his suit screaming for help as it tried desperately to stay buttoned around his ever growing—stress eater—belly.
“Well, if it isn’t the biggest pain in my ass since my double hemorrhoid of 2011,” Manning barked.
Xander shot to his feet. Sarah noticed that the two of them could literally not be more different. Manning looked worn, gray, stubby, soft, and completely devoid of style. Xander was fresh, tall, and hard as a rock. Xander’s photograph belonged in the pages of a men’s style magazine. He wore his tight-fitting navy blazer, white collared shirt, gray skinny jeans, and navy Italian loafers like an all-out stud. He combined the dapperness of a European with the sexy strength of a full-blooded American. It was the very best of both worlds. A man built in a lab, Sarah thought, despite the tension of the moment.
“By pain in the ass I’m assuming you mean doing your job for you. Taking out no less than seven of the FBI’s ten most wanted in the last twelve months. That pain in the ass?”
“So, you’re going to come in here, to a man who holds your fate in the palm of his hands, and be a smart-ass. Fuckin’ prick, I oughta throw you in jail right now.”
Xander took a step forward.
“You could try.”
“Try?” Manning’s head looked about to explode. Sarah noticed that his shade of red had gone from rouge to maroon. She had to do something before this became a real situation.
“Director Manning, Xander, can I just remind you that we are on the same team?”
Xander scoffed while Manning turned his rage to her.
“Sarah Gilbright, nice of you to finally check in. Let me just remind you that your fate, just li
ke Captain America here, also hangs in the balance of my good graces. And let me just tell both of you this”—he pointed between the two of them—“It ain’t lookin’ good for either one of ya.”
Xander heard the accent of Manning’s last sentence turn to hillbilly, and he knew he was making fun of Xander being from Kentucky.
Xander overexaggerated a country twang himself. “How original, Manning. That’s right, I’m a hillbilly. I have a bourbon distillery and a farm, you know, where my seventeen-million-dollar horsee stays in a barn worth three times your house here in Virginia.”
Kyle swore he could see steam piping out of Manning’s ears.
Sam stood up; she’d had enough of the nonsense.
“Could we please step inside your office like adults and have an actual conversation? Regardless of the fact that our fates are in your hands, Mr. Manning, Sarah is right. We are trying to accomplish the same goals.”
“Is that right, princess? And just what goal might that be? To avenge Xander’s parents? I couldn’t give a rabbit fuck less about them.”
Xander stepped forward, but Sam caught him and stepped in front of him before he could rearrange the ugly on Manning’s face.
“Well, that may be the case, Mr. Manning, but I do know that you care about having Xander working for you, and not against you. I think everyone, including your superiors, would agree with that.”
Just then a man stepped out into the hallway from Manning’s office. He looked like he was straight out of an old western. He held a tan suede cowboy hat down by his dark blue Levi’s as he ran a hand through his medium-length silver hair. His matching silver mustache, red-and-black checkered flannel shirt, and battle-hardened, wrinkled face along with a good-looking pair of caramel, tan cowboy boots rounded out his Montana man persona. He stepped in front of Manning and reached his hand toward Xander. Xander accepted the handshake from the old, but still fit, cowboy.
“Jack Bronson.” A real man’s man voice.
Jack reminded Xander of a carbon copy of Sam Elliot. Voice and all. The man, like Xander, had a real presence.
“Xander King.”
Xander reminded Jack of a hardened—whatever that pretty guy’s name was in The Hangover, something Cooper. Real pretty, like him, but with a razor-sharp edge. An edge you can only obtain from war.
“Frogman?” Jack grunted, alluding to Xander’s time as a SEAL. Something he and Xander shared.
“Oorah.” Xander smiled.
“Oh, terrific, the two of you are fast friends.” Sarcasm poured out of that comment as Manning rolled his eyes and motioned for them all to move inside his office. Had Manning made a massive error putting Jack on this?
Jack had managed to defuse the situation. Just before Sam and Kyle walked through the door, Manning held up his hand. “The help will have to wait in the lobby. Mary will be glad to get you a coffee and a copy of The Washington Post. I’m sure there is yet another story in there of how Captain Fuckup King here goes about his business.”
And just like that, the tension shot back through the roof. Xander waved them in.
“Where I go, they go. You want to talk to me, you talk to them. We don’t do a damn thing without them. Captain Fuckup, that’s you, dick.” Mr. Mature.
Manning puffed out his chest. “You don’t make the rules here, King, and—”
“Boys,” Jack spoke up. “If everything you two say turns into a pissing contest, that’s all this whole meeting’s gonna be. Tommy, it seems like what these two did over in Syria ought to be enough to get them into this meeting. They’re the kind of people I want on my team anyway.”
“I appreciate that, Mr. Bronson—”
“Call me Jack.”
“I appreciate that, Jack, but your team?” Xander made a face.
Manning finally gave in and had everyone take a seat. After starting with his “this is how this is gonna go” speech, Manning proceeded to explain how their relationship was going to work. Xander’s team, the CIA, and Jack Bronson would all work together. After some back and forth between Xander and Manning not seeing eye to eye on things—well, on almost everything—they finally came to an agreement.
Jack Bronson would be the lead. Mostly, Manning explained, because he couldn’t leave handling Xander to the—in his own words—“apparently inadequate Sarah Gilbright.” But he at least let her be a part of this so-called team. Xander agreed to Jack being designated the lead because he knew he was going to do what he had to do, regardless. At least this way, Jack—who Xander liked immediately—would be the one to communicate with Manning. Something Xander would never do, and he was happy Sam wouldn’t have to do it either. It was even easier to let Jack have this designation after he heard the similarities in their military experience. Both walked away from prestigious careers due to lack of trust in the US government. Manning at least had the foresight to see the need for bringing in someone Xander could relate to. However, Xander was no fool. He knew that no matter what, this was Manning’s guy. All the important details would stay between Xander, Sam, and Kyle.
The jury was still out on Sarah Gilbright.
10
Sam’s Cold Heart Might Just
Have a Warm Spot After All
Xander, Sam, and Kyle gave Sarah time to pack a bag before they all boarded the jet bound for Lexington. Jack Bronson agreed to hold council at Xander’s home there, but he wanted to drive himself down. Sam got to work immediately on preparing the next steps, but when she approached Xander, he made it very clear that he needed a break. Twenty-four hours. That’s all he asked. He knew how quickly they needed to regroup, because at the very moment they were speaking about it, Nicoli Pavlovich and Vitalii Dragov would be trying to figure out a way to kill him. He just had to have one day to recover. She declined his offer of taking a break with them, but she understood.
Sam knew that Xander’s hidden reason, the real reason, why he wanted to take a break. He wanted to get to know Sarah Gilbright and where her allegiance truly lay. Sam was okay with this, because she knew Xander had a special way with women. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that by the time they all sat down together tomorrow morning to get serious, Xander would know exactly just how in Sarah Gilbright was. She also saw the way Sarah looked at Xander, and knew there would undoubtedly be some “complications” that came along with this so-called night off. Sarah was much too beautiful for Xander to keep his hands off of her. Especially with Natalie Rockwell off in Paris, trying to live without him. Sam knew that wouldn’t last long either. She had never seen Xander look at a woman the way he looked at Natalie. He was in love, and when Xander loved something, it stayed around forever. The only thing that really made her nervous for Xander was that Sarah embodied a lot of the same qualities that she knew he liked about Natalie. Sam didn’t do love anymore for this very reason. That, and she had been burnt by a love triangle once herself. She knew there was nothing she could do because Xander led with his heart. And while that is an amazing quality in a person, it can often lead to more heartache than anything else.
Sam let all of these thoughts wash over her as she looked out the window to see Kyle, Kate, Sarah, and Xander playing in the pool. Kyle had invited Kate––his “Lexington girlfriend”––over to relax with Xander and Sarah. She looked out beyond them toward the rolling hills of freshly cut green grass. Sam had never been much of a fan of anything but the city. That was because she had never known anything else. She had to admit to herself, as the afternoon sun shined down over the majesty of Kentucky, that she couldn’t imagine going back after now being exposed to both ways of life. She, of course, could never tell Xander this, but Lexington and the Internet had all the things in the world a girl could ever need, without all the shit the miserable people living around buildings all day try to sell you is good about where they live. Bullocks, every single bit of it. Big city living is for people who haven’t figured out what to do with their lives. Sam realized that was why they loved all those distractions, to keep from having to
actually work at figuring it out. Sam knew she didn’t have it all figured out, but she was at least doing some real good with her life. A fact that, before she met Xander, she never thought would be possible. You just never know in life. She had that thought as she was looking down at Kyle and couldn’t understand why it bothered her when she saw Kate touching him. For as long as she’d known Kyle, she’d thought him an immature wildcard, incapable of real love. But something was different about him since coming back from Syria. Or maybe something was different about the way she saw him. Whatever it was, the thought returned like a bullet through flesh.
You never know.
“Xander, thanks for being okay with me coming along. I’m not sure Manning would have let me keep my job if you hadn’t insisted that I be part of the team.”
“Sarah, if I haven’t said it, thank you for everything you have done for me. You have gone way beyond to help me and to make sure that my friends and I were safe. I am forever in your debt for keeping that crazy son of a bitch alive.” Xander smiled and pointed to Kyle who was leaning against the side of the pool talking to Kate. Xander was on his back on a float in the pool, being careful not to get the stitches in his stomach wet. Sarah had pulled a sun chair over to the side of the pool, and was lying on her stomach looking down at him. She found him absolutely fetching in his swimming trunks. The sun glistening off of his lightly sweat-beaded body.
Before she could respond, Kyle and Kate waded over, and Kyle splashed playfully at them both.
“Would you all stop being so damn serious all the time? Sarah, I need you to be a positive influence if you are gonna be around. I have a hard enough time getting Xander to relax, I don’t need your help making it worse.” Kyle splashed again. “Now get your ass in the pool, girl!”
“Hey now, come on. Watch it. Don’t get Xander’s stitches wet!” Sarah laughed as she got up. She took a seat on the concrete, letting her legs dangle in the pool. The three of them stared back at Sarah like she was on fire. And, as far as Xander was concerned, she was hot enough to be. Her blonde hair looked lighter than usual against the darkening tan of her body. The only bathing suit she could find in her apartment in Virginia on such short notice was a pale blue bikini—Brazilian-cut bottoms with little tiny straps on the top. Far too skimpy to be wearing around people she hardly knew.
Xander King BoxSet Page 32