by Cate Noble
“Who are you?” Ian began.
Rocco stepped out of the closet. The man turned just as Rocco fired a Tazer. The man dropped his gun and fell to the floor, writhing uncontrollably.
Rocco swept the man’s gun out of reach as Dante, Max, and Travis pushed into the room.
Max covered Ian, while Dante and Travis pulled the intruder to his feet.
“Where is Gena?” Rocco demanded.
The man shrugged. “No habla Ingles.”
“No speak English,” Dante said. “Cat, we need you in here.”
Catalina slipped inside the room. “The maid is handcuffed in the hall, but I don’t think she’s involved,” Cat said.
“Ask him where Gena is,” Rocco said.
Cat translated. “He says you have no authority here. And if he doesn’t call his partner in the next few minutes, Gena will die.”
Rocco surged forward, but Travis held him back. “He’s got a point. We can seek extradition.”
The man laughed now, switching effortlessly to English. “Yes, call the local authorities so they can tell you exactly where to stick your extradition papers.”
Travis tapped his earpiece. “We’re ready for you.”
The door opened as Rey Salvador and two Mexican police agents came in. Rey flashed his INTERPOL credentials. “This man, Edguardo Pina, is wanted for the murder of one of my agents in Monterrey.”
Edguardo shook his head and glared at Rocco. “You’ll regret this.”
“Not as much as you,” Rey said. “I’m also booking you for the murder of one of the Rialto cartel’s couriers. How long do you think you’ll last in jail with that charge?”
“I’d rather be extradited!” Edguardo snarled.
Travis nodded. “You cooperate with us and we can arrange that. He’s all yours, Rocco.”
Rocco listened as Edguardo called Harry, or Bob Munson, as Edguardo knew him.
“I have Senor Brown,” Edguardo told Harry. “He wasn’t happy to see me.”
“No bugs or wires?” Harry asked.
“Looks clean. I watched his room a while before I went in and I’ve been driving now with no tails.”
“Come on back,” Harry said. “Tell Ian I’m looking forward to meeting him at last.”
Edguardo gave Rocco the address and a sketch of the floor plan, then rode with the Mexican agents and Rey Salvador.
Rocco and Dante drove Edguardo’s car to the location. As soon as they had word that Travis and Max had the front and rear doors covered, Rocco pulled up the street and pressed the garage door opener. As soon as Rocco parked, they climbed out of the car.
“Ready?” Rocco had his gun out.
Dante nodded as he opened the door leading into the house. They rushed inside together, a move they’d done a hundred times before.
“About time.” Harry came around the corner and into the kitchen.
“Freeze!” Rocco shouted.
Harry darted out of sight before Rocco could fire a shot.
“Give it up, Harry.” Rocco eased toward the corner. “We’ve got the place surrounded.”
“Rocco!” Gena called out from another room. “He said for you to come in alone.”
Dante shook his head. “He’ll blow you away.”
Gena screamed.
“I’m coming in.” Rocco tucked his gun at his back and stepped around the corner with his hands raised.
Gena was seated in a straight-backed chair, her hands and ankles bound. She wore a white bathrobe. He noted the bruises at her neck.
Harry stood behind her, a gun pointed at her head. “You really want to risk her life?”
“You won’t make it out of here alive,” Rocco warned.
“I’m counting on it. You really think I want to be taken alive? You know what they’ll do to me?”
“Keep him talking,” Travis Franks’s voice said through Rocco’s earpiece.
“Do you think you deserve anything less?” Rocco said. “You’re a traitor!”
Harry laughed. “If you’re trying to piss me off, you can stop. I’m finished, and we both know it. This is my last hurrah.”
“You always were a cowardly SOB,” Rocco said. “It’s one reason we never got along.”
“No! Kerri Ford was the reason we never got along.”
Rocco tried to recall who Kerri Ford was. The name was familiar, but he wasn’t sure why.
“Kerri Ford,” Rocco repeated.Come on, Travis, give me a hint.
“Jesus Christ. You don’t remember Kerri?” Harry tightened his grip on Gena’s shoulder, causing her to flinch in pain. “See, Gena. I told you that he was a male whore—that he’d fuck anything. Kerri Ford worked at the Blue Halo in Phoenix.”
Rocco did remember Kerri. Blond, big smile. Big flirt. Harry had talked about her all the time. Until she died.
“I remember Kerri,” Rocco said. “Sweet girl. No one believed she was the type to commit suicide.”
“I wanted to marry her,” Harry said. “And then you had to ask her out. She was sure you loved her because you’d slept with her. And you don’t even remember her name!”
“Max will take him out when he moves clear of Gena,” Travis said in Rocco’s ear.
“How did it feel when I stole Gena?” Harry said. “Too bad you were never around to see our game.”
“You mean the one where you beat her, Harry? Nice game.”
“Even that lost its fun,” Harry said. “Because you were gone. Hell, you weaseled out of everything.”
“Sometimes things don’t work out like we plan.”
“No shit. Do you think you could have survived what Dante and Max went through? You were supposed to be on that mission, not Max! It should have been you!” Harry leaned lower, closer to Gena. “Tell him good-bye, princess.” Then he pressed his lips to Gena’s temple and kissed her.
“Fuck you, Harry,” Gena said as she slammed her head backward, straight into Harry’s nose. He jerked away, screaming and swearing.
Rocco fired his gun. Harry fell backward with the force of the shot. Immediately, Dante swept in the room and moved to where Harry was rolling on the floor in pain.
Rocco raced over to Gena and began cutting away her bindings. She stood and Rocco snatched her up and carried her into the next room.
“Is he dead?” Gena asked.
Rocco shook his head. “I wanted to kill him for what he’d done to us, to you. But when I heard him admit what he did to Dante and Max, I realized he needed to live. To answer to them and for everything else he’s done wrong. Harry wanted me to kill him so he would avoid standing trial and going to prison.”
Max rushed in to where Rocco and Gena stood. “Travis wants to know if Gena is okay.”
“Tell Travis she’s perfect.”
“Tell Travis she wants to go home,” Gena added as Max headed out the door.
“Home with me?” Rocco asked. “At least for now? I love you, Gena. And we have a lot of time to make up for.”
“Home with you?” Gena lifted her lips for a kiss. “Sounds like heaven.”
Epilogue
Key West, FL
October 12, 4:30 P.M.
The reflected sunlight hurt Rocco’s eyes as he watched Gena rise up from an ocean wave. Did that excuse sound legit? Or did he need to rub sand in his eyes to disguise the fact he’d just teared up while sitting there.
Watching her.
His Gena.
She had returned to Arlington with him, and except for a few times when Rocco went in to the office, they hadn’t been apart. He wanted it to stay that way. Forever. And since she’d agreed to marry him, his chances at forever were looking damn good.
The rest of it was all up in the air. Where to live? What to do? Gena had insisted that he stay with the Agency, not wanting to influence his decision. But Rocco knew it was time for a change. He’d been feeling restless for a while.
Then Gena teased that neither of them knew what they wanted to do when they grew up, which sounded perfec
t to Rocco. He and Gena would build a new life together, with no remnants from the past. In fact, the sooner the aftermath of theold was cleared away, the better.
The extent of Harry’s betrayal still wasn’t clear, but he’d agreed to plead guilty and cooperate in exchange for a life sentence. Of course Harry was still playing games with investigators, teasing them with information in hopes of gaining favors. Which made Rocco grateful the investigation was someone else’s job.
He watched as Gena walked toward him, her face turned up to catch the waning sun. What this woman did to a bikini should probably be outlawed in public.
The ache in his chest grew heavier as she approached. Would it ever go away? This haunting desire to be with her? Or had he lived with it for so long, it was embedded in his psyche? He rubbed his sternum.
Gena reached the edge of the blanket. She stood there and smiled. Then she bent over and shook her head, spraying him with water. “A gift from the sea.”
“You? Or the droplets?”
He stood and helped her dry off before pulling her close for a kiss.
“I’m seriously considering a career as a beach bum,” he said.
“Great minds think alike. I’ve been imagining myself as a sand castle builder.”
“Great minds love alike.” He spread kisses along the curve of her neck. “Ready to head back? I promised Dante I’d man the grill this evening.”
“And I want to man the kitchen. I don’t want Catalina in there unless she’s preparing tea for herself.”
“How long does morning sickness last anyway?”
“According to Cat, hers never goes away. Poor thing.”
Dante, Catalina, and their two-year-old son, Marco, had flown to Key West yesterday with Rocco and Gena. They were the first to hear the news: Cat was pregnant.
“I was thinking. We could throw them a combination wedding and baby shower,” Gena said.
“You might want to check with Erin on that,” Rocco said. He, Max, and Dante had all laughed to learn that each of their fiancées had suggested throwing wedding showers for the others.
“Let’s just do one big party instead,” Max had suggested. “Like this.”
They were staying at an eight-bedroom beach house Travis Franks had rented for the week. Except Travis and Maddy hadn’t shown up yet. Rocco hoped it wasn’t because Maddy was having complications from the surgery she’d had in Singapore.
Max and Erin were swinging in the oversized hammock on the back deck of the house. Max was reluctant to let Erin out of his sight, which Rocco could understand.
“Travis just got in,” Max said as Gena and Rocco approached the deck. “Says he’s got a big announcement to make at dinner.”
“Dinner. Food.” Rocco’s stomach growled. “I’m starving. And since I’m cooking, I say we eat in an hour.”
Gena followed him into the kitchen. “I wasn’t hungry until you mentioned food.” She opened the refrigerator and began pulling out dishes she’d prepared earlier.
“Any of your potato salad left?”
She shook her head. “Dante and Max finished it off at lunch. But I’ll make more.”
Rocco had been surprised to discover that cooking was another skill Vianca had taught Gena. And Gena had mastered it, too.
Rocco and Gena fell into an easy camaraderie with each other as he seasoned steaks and she chopped vegetables for a salad.
“Let’s eat outside,” she suggested. She piled a tray with dishes and silverware, then followed Rocco and the steaks out to the deck.
Travis and Maddy were standing at the rail, looking out at the beach. Rocco smiled. He had been the first to learn that Maddy and Travis were married. That they were a perfect match was obvious.
“Yo! Look at those steaks!” Dante said as he and Cat came out of the house with Marco in tow.
Cat grimaced at the platters of food and moved to the far side of the deck. “I just got my stomach calmed down.”
Ignoring the adults, Marco made a beeline for the steps, lugging his sand bucket and shovel. He had claimed the sand at the bottom of the deck stairs as his.
Gena ferried food out from the kitchen, declining help. On her final trip, she carried a tray with a pitcher of fresh limeade.
“The kind with pineapple, I hope?” Cat asked.
“Yes. Anyone else?” Gena ended up pouring a glass for everyone.
“Guess this is as good a time as any,” Travis said. He moved to his briefcase and withdrew several large envelopes.
Rocco groaned. “No work! We’re on vacation.”
Travis shoved an envelope into his hands, then gave one to Max and Dante, too. “You can open them later to review the fine print, but basically they’re job offers. Damn good ones. I’ve agreed to head up a new private security operation and I need expert help to build it.”
“You’re leaving the Agency,” Rocco said.
“Resigned last week,” Travis confirmed. “Maddy and I have been house hunting in Miami. The new headquarters will be in South Beach. Your offers include relocation.”
Dante held his limeade up. “I’m in.”
Max nodded. “Me, too.”
Everyone looked expectantly at Rocco now. He wrapped an arm around Gena. “I’ll have to get back to you later, Travis. After Gena and I have discussed what we want.”
Gena smiled up at him. “Thanks for that, but it’s your call. You have my support either way, though personally—” She winked. “Travis had me at South Beach.”
“Guess I’m in, too,” Rocco said.
Dante grinned.“Iproposeatoasttothe new venture.”
“To new ventures!” Rocco echoed.
Max raised his glass now. “To brothers found. And to the remarkable women we love.”
Everyone cheered at that.
Rocco rubbed his sternum. That ache in his chest was back, but this time he had a name for it. It was love fulfilled and expanding.
If you liked this Cate Noble book, try the others in the series, available now from Zebra!
DEAD RIGHT
In the first in a thrilling new series where pulse-pounding suspense meets wild, sensual heat, Cate Noble introduces Dante Johnson, a CIA operative caught in a firestorm of betrayal and desire …
After eighteen months in a secret prison in Southeast Asia, Dante Johnson wants only to move on with his life—until a bomb attack makes it clear that someone, somewhere won’t let the past go. All signs point to Catalina Dion, the brilliant foreign agent he once believed himself in love with … the same woman suspected of selling him out …
Cat knows her young son’s safety depends on her ability to remain hidden. But now Dante has tracked her down, reigniting the searing attraction between them and tempting Cat to lower her guard in potentially lethal ways. She can’t escape him. She can’t resist him. And now, together, they’re on the trail of a rogue Russian scientist, risking everything on a fragile trust and a fierce hunger that may be more dangerous than any enemy they’ve ever faced …
DEADLY SEDUCTION
Abducted CIA operative Max Duncan returns to his home turf—and into a web of intrigue with the only woman who can help him salvage what’s left of his life …
Think only of the mission—or suffer the consequences. This has been Max Duncan’s reality for two years. His thoughts are not his own, and any attempt to exert his will results in excruciating pain. Then his friends stage a rescue he never believed possible. Finally “safe” at home, Max still can’t escape the prison of his own mind …
Dr. Erin Houston, called to California to help Max, would rather be investigating her father’s death, a “suicide” she’s convinced was actually murder. But when she and Max end up on the run, their time together sparks a connection between the mind-control experiments her father was fighting to stop and Max’s suffering …
Now, as Erin and Max race to expose the truth, someone with a different agenda is closing in—and will stop at nothing to prove them dead wrong …
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Cate Noble, Deadly Games