by Sable Jordan
Her head drew back, the disappointment, the hurt on Xander’s face clawing through her. “I…I saw an opening, I took it,” Kizzie said reflexively. “What, you wanted me to wait around while you and Sumi had a civil chat over tea and crumpets? S’not what I do. Me waiting, me even hesitating means people die—innocent people die. So I go in and get what I need, however I need to get it. That’s how I operate.”
“Not anymore, you don’t,” he grit out.
“I don’t answer to you, Xander. And I’m doing my job, tracking down the bomb that you—”
“Goddammit, woman! Fuck the job!” he roared. “Quit hiding behind that and understand it could have been you! What if…Christ, Kizzie…” His voice cracked and he swallowed hard. When he spoke again it was hoarse, strained. “What if when I came through that door it was your lifeless body laying there? What if…I’d lost you?”
At the torment in his eyes, an unfamiliar burn pressed hot behind hers. Warning bells clanged in her head. Xander was too close to breaching all of her defenses and she couldn’t allow that. She forced her shoulders into a half-hearted shrug. “Guess you’da had to find another way to get Harvey.”
He slammed his palm into the wall inches from her head and she jumped. “You think I give a good goddamn about that bomb, Kizzie?” he said gruffly. “Do you honestly think I care about it more than I care about you? That I could live with you being hurt or killed going after it?”
Kizzie’s eyes widened and all her snark lodged in her throat. She needed to back away from his words but couldn’t. Some asshole had inconveniently built a wall behind her. A charged silence hung between them, broken by the soft pelt of water streaming from the shower head.
“Fuck,” Xander bit out, chest heaving. He looked down, dragging in ragged breaths before eyeing her again. “We gotta talk.”
Fatigue tugged at Kizzie’s muscles, the adrenaline spike choosing this inopportune moment to dissipate. Trembling, she dropped her head back against the tiles, unable to hide the exhaustion in her voice.
“Please don’t do this…pretend…” The V in Xander’s forehead dug in deeper. “I’m not asking you to care about me, Xander. Don’t need you to, don’t even want you to. I don’t matter. The job matters. Stopping that bomb matters. You and me could’ve just…” She circled her hand lazily through the air, a synonym for sex, let it drop again at her side. She exhaled heavily. “…then you could’ve gone back to the wife and I— Look, it was stupid, but…it didn’t have to mean anything.”
That small, cold glint in his eyes crystallized, grew into something harder, bigger. “Get out,” he growled through bared teeth. She held his fiery gaze. “Get out, get dry, get dressed. Be sitting on that bed when I come in there.”
The threat/command combo rolled off her shoulders, cool as the water falling from the shower head. She breathed a chuckle through her nose.
“Kizzie,” he warned, grabbing her wrist as she slipped by.
“Don’t tou—” She spun and jerked out of his hold. Both hands shot up fast, palms stopping just short of striking his chest. The move that would have fractured his sternum had she followed through. Her whole body shook hard, and the deep breath didn’t smother it. A corner of her mouth curled up into an empty half-smile.
“Gonna need a new pair.” Pointer fingers turned down toward her wet boots, her blank stare never left his face as she backed away. “Jet black. Nine and a half.”
* * * *
Xander didn’t move until she’d left the bathroom. If he went now, after that snarky comment and forced apathy, he was bound to spank her raw. Best he calmed down. He’d been in a silent rage from the moment he noticed Kizzie and Sumi were gone, and the fury only grew once he realized how they’d slipped out. Finding Kizzie in that apartment, hands wrapped around a dead woman’s throat, eviscerated his last shred of control. It also made up his mind for him: He had to tell her the truth.
About everything. About everybody. Connolly…Tate…Naima… Phil…
Himself.
The next move would be Kizzie’s. She’d either run to him or run from him, and Xander knew he couldn’t handle the latter.
He killed the flow of cold water and slung a towel around his waist, exiting the bathroom mildly calmer than when he’d entered. But the litter across the floor ratcheted him back up to DEFCON 1.
Two wet boots just outside the alcove that led to the bedroom. Wet jeans six inches farther, socks peaking out from beneath the denim, soaked blue panties still in the seat. Another foot yielded a wet bra and shirt. Xander seethed, muttered “Phil had better hope his ass is gone.”
He rounded the corner. Phil was still stretched across the bed, stupid grin on his face and hands tucked behind his head. He stared at whatever was coming across the TV.
Xander spun around, ready to let fly. Phil’s room was a standard—no separate common area, no additional rooms or cubbies. So unless Kizzie had stuffed herself in the closet…
“Where is she?”
“She left.”
“I can see that, you ass,” Xander barked, not liking the mirth in Phil’s voice. “You didn’t go after her?”
“Nothing gets by you, ace.”
Xander flung the door open and looked both ways down the hall. Empty. What the hell was she doing? He turned back to Phil. “Go find her.”
“Let her cool off. I’ve never seen a woman dress so—”
Rage carried Xander across the room. Enough of the jokes. He wanted to break something. Phil would do.
Lightning-fast the big man shot to his feet, fists balled. “Bad idea.”
The best moments of Xander’s life started out as bad ideas. A reckless smile split his face. Phil had been itching for a rematch since they’d fought as kids and Xander was happy to oblige. “You better not have any hard feelings after.”
A wry chuckle flitted across the room. “Harvey.” Phil sidestepped carefully, still in a fighter’s stance as he inched out of the corner. “Harvey’s the goal, not her. When you’re thinking—straight or otherwise—you’ll realize how stupid it was to get your ass kicked over a woman who’ll be back in a couple hours. You don’t want this fight any more than I do.”
“You don’t know what the fuck I want.”
“That makes two of us.” Phil shot back. He sighed, shook his head and dropped his hands to his sides. “She was pretty upset. Give her some space to think.”
Xander’s fists were still balled. He took a step closer. “How could you let her go head first into an ambush!”
“She went head first, knowing full-well I’d track the lock, which I did. Kizzie came to me the other night, talking about spiders and flies and…hell, I dunno.” He shrugged. “She asked for a head start… Her mind was made up; she was going whether I helped her or not. ”
And there it was.
Kizzie trusted Phil to have her back, but didn’t trust Xander at all. He ground his teeth, nostrils flared. “It’s not your job to protect her.”
“Whose job is it, yours? Fine, you want it that way, stop being a dick and bring her on. Until then, it’s my job to protect you, and you’re making my job so goddamn difficult…
“This is the last crack at Harvey. No storybook third time’s a charm, no fairy godmother to wave a wand and make it magically appear. We lose it now it’s lost. So, yeah, I let Kizzie take the risk, ‘cause she’s damn good at what she does and ‘cause I’m not the one falling for her.”
Xander forced his fists over his scalp and then laced his fingers behind his neck. Groaning, he tipped his head back and stared up at the ceiling.
“Apology accepted.”
His heart beat harder than a bass tube. Xander inhaled a deep breath into his constricting lungs, trying to clear the haze of worry threatening to suffocate him. Kizzie was out there alone, wandering through Tokyo late at night. Trained CIA agent or not, it didn’t stop a thousand horrible scenarios from rushing through his head. Another deep breath and he sighed heavily.
“She’s gonna drive me to drink, Phil,” he said, almost plaintively. “Hook me up to a whiskey IV, would’ja?”
“You always did have a weakness for strong women,” Phil said, chuckling. “Seems you finally found one as stubborn as you are.” He motioned toward the food on the table before plopping down on the bed again. “She ordered for everybody; even Sumi, though I can’t be sure it’s not poisoned.”
Xander puffed out another breath and trudged over to the table. Three full plates sat on the surface, one empty plate beside them. He knew who’d cleaned that one. “She didn’t eat.”
“Short of force-feeding her, I doubt Kizzie was hungry. I’m surprised she stayed put as long a she did after what happened. Sumi still alive?”
Xander grunted. True to his word, he hadn’t laid a hand on her, and the amount of control that took far exceeded anything required to throw a whip or work a tawse. Sumi had no limits; wanted to be treated roughly. Exhibited the kind of blind devotion that could get a sub seriously hurt. Or dead.
Kizzie didn’t understand by not punishing Sumi he was torturing the shit out of the girl. In just a short time Xander had seen the effects, and the technique had proved useful in keeping her in line…right up until Kizzie decided to run off with her.
Another deep breath. “Stix?”
“Promises delivery tonight.” Phil checked his phone. “I’ll head out in a bit to meet him.”
Good. They’d get the info they needed and go. And once this was done, maybe Kizzie would come with him.
He bit off a hunk of her cold burger, forcing it down through the doubt in his throat. Another mechanical bite, chewing without tasting. Kizzie was fine. He had to believe that. She’d come back, they’d both have cooler heads and then he could get to the bottom of why she kept pushing him away.
“Wouldn’t have got my ass kicked,” Xander mumbled around the food in his cheek. “For the record.”
“In a fair fight? Nah...” Phil flipped the channel to yet another station he couldn’t translate. “Lucky me, I don’t fight fair. Yank the towel, feint left, knee to the balls. ‘Down…goes…Xander.’”
The fourth blow to her side should have brought Kizzie to her knees, not so much by the strength but the location, right over her previously damaged ribs. Ribs that still gave her problems, especially after a brawl with a blue-haired lunatic and then this new asshole decided to hit there repeatedly. A fifth strike connected and she winced, clenched her teeth.
She shouldn’t have stopped; should have kept walking like she’d been doing the past two hours. But seeing the girls cowering beneath their attacker’s raised hand wasn’t something she could just ignore. At least that’s how she rationalized darting into the darkened alley. Truth was, enough adrenaline coursed through her veins to make her feel damn-near invincible.
Too bad she hadn’t counted on the second guy. Heavyset and reeking of grease. No idea what he looked like—the coward attacked from behind, pressing his sweaty cheek to hers and trying to grind his pelvis into her ass. His bulbous paunch preventing that contact. Arms held overhead in a vice-like grip that irritated her shoulder, his meaty palms pressed against the base of her skull.
“Not so tough without your bodyguards,” Koji said, standing so close she could smell the ass he must have eaten for dinner. Blood seeped from the split in his lip where she’d gotten a couple punches in first. He flicked Xander’s tilted baseball cap from her head, let it fall to the ground. Wormy hands groped her thighs as he searched her, finding both her cell phone and Fay’s. That was all she’d grabbed when she left the hotel room. No wallet, no ID. She’d hopped into dry clothes and left. Sure, she would have to go back and face Xander’s anger at some point in order to get her gear, but first she intended to search Fay’s phone without the oppressiveness of his “caring.”
Or the confusion that came from knowing he did.
Xander was playing her, right? He had to be. Why would he let her take Harvey when he was in it for 6 million? How could he care about her? Why would he care about her? Simple. He wouldn’t.
He didn’t.
Greasy’s grip tightened. Were these guys still here?
Koji tried turning her phone on and got nothing. Fay’s screen lit, and he stuffed it into his back pocket. A crooked smile on his thin lips, he ran his fingers down the side of her face and she jerked away.
“What’s your name?”
She gave a bored sigh; took inventory of Koji, looking for a bulge that might indicate a weapon. Not too surprising there wasn’t one. Koji was all bark.
Kizzie was a biter.
“Your buddy’s gonna let me go. Then you’re gonna give me those phones back….and stop hitting those girls.”
Koji frowned, looked at a spot over her shoulder, and then he and his friend laughed. Raising her phone, he crashed it down on the ground. It didn’t shatter. He tried to help it along, stomping on the casing repeatedly. “Oops.”
She inhaled a breath, expanding her lungs as far as she could.
“Think we should—”
Kizzie let her legs go weak, dropping her center of mass at the same time she forced the breath out. Greasy lowered too, chuckling until her hand found his middle finger where it was clamped on her neck. She gripped it and pulled back hard. He cried out; his hold slipped.
She sidestepped and angled away; faced him in a half-crouch. His finger firmly in her control, Kizzie landed leopard blows into his groin, three quick, cutting strikes. He doubled over, howling in pain. She twisted his arm back and up at the same time, rammed her knee into his diaphragm.
Greasy crumpled like a tin can, large body jiggling on impact with the ground.
Grinning wickedly she turned to Koji. He backed away a few steps and then paused. Good. Kizzie wasn’t in the mood for chasing.
Koji went all Xena Warrior Princess, a high-pitched scream accompanying his charge, arms flailing wildly. She dodged his poor swipes, spun behind him and shoved him forward with the heel of her sneaker on his ass. He stumbled, regained his balance and came back for more.
Kizzie ran straight at him, dropped her shoulder at the last second and dove into his chest. Koji lost touch with the ground half a second and then Kizzie slammed his back against the asphalt. Kneeling over him, she drew back her fist and connected with his jaw, the punch so hard she slid off and tagged concrete.
Another throw and she stood, kicked him squarely between the legs. Then she yanked one arm, pulled it and twisted.
“The thing about arms,” Kizzie said, breathing hard, “they’re really hard to break. Take a lot of time and torque.”
She turned some more, gripped his wrist and forced his hand open. “Fingers though…”
Kizzie pulled back until she heard a disturbing snap. Koji screamed bloody murder, the two girls joined him.
“He told you I was the mean one,” Kizzie hissed in his ear. She rummaged through his pockets, reclaimed Fay’s phone and found his cheap wallet. Inside were three ¥10,000 notes—one disappeared into her pocket. “For my trouble. Now stop hitting those girls.”
One last kick in the side set to the soundtrack of Koji’s wails, Kizzie dusted off the black cap and slammed it down on her head. Her phone was on the ground, casing scraped. It survived much harsher working conditions than a couple stomps from a wannabe pimp.
A harsh warning for the two girls and the money divided between them, Kizzie took off.
Ten minutes later, she slipped into a room in one of the “nicer” love motels—paid for courtesy of Koji—afraid to grope around for the light switch. The things that went on in these places could be heard at that exact moment in the form of pounding against the thin walls. A bed in a nearby room squeaked. A woman hit a falsetto and someone grunted.
Lovely.
Apart from the live baby-making concert, the room was nothing spectacular: a desk, two chairs, and a queen-size bed all glowing a garish yellow under the poor lighting. Her gaze dusted over the comforter. Regardless of how tired she wa
s, sleep was a negatory.
With the surge of endorphins waning, her hand throbbed. The knuckles were scraped and fat with bits of dirt embedded in the torn skin. A mini-fridge sat beneath the table holding the TV, an old tube set she also had no intention of touching. Tossing the ball cap on the desktop, she checked the fridge for a frozen section—no luck—but did find a pint of cheap saké that was relatively cool. It’d do.
The tumblers shifted in the door lock, snapping Kizzie’s head up. Her heart rate followed. Whoever was out there looking for a fun time had come to the wrong place.
The knob turned.
Bottle in hand, Kizzie darted to the door on silent feet, pressing her back against the wall. Sticky. She pushed the thought aside, lifted the weapon. Waited.
The door cracked open, stopped mid swing.
“Classy digs.” Phil said poked his head around the edge. “May I?” He stepped all the way inside and smiled, closing the door behind him.
Kizzie came from her sad little hiding spot and went to the table, Phil on her heels. Frowning, she picked up the cap, folded down the lining. Nothing.
She watched him as her fingers traced each of the seams where the triangular panels met. All were empty except the last, which had a needle-thin ridge hidden inside. She followed that to the flat silver disc just beneath the button crown.
Phil hadn’t made an attempt to stop her when she stormed out, just tossed her the cap. In her haste she didn’t even think about it. Stupid.
More interesting than her stupidity, why did Phil have a tracer on Xander?
He dropped into the spare seat and reached for her phone. Popping the flap on the side, he ejected a small black square from a port. Had it been spyware or a hack into her phone, a signal would have been relayed to Headquarters two seconds before the device wiped its hard drive. Since her phone was working fine, it could only be one other thing. A tracer.
She was losing her edge.
“Don’t feel bad. It’s short range and I almost didn’t get it in, you flew out of that bathroom so damn fast… Jacket collar.”