by Linzi Basset
“Four in total. It’s escalating with every threat. He now fears for his daughter.”
“Lemme guess. They’re threatening to kidnap her and force her into the sex trade?” Keon sneered.
“Hola! He speaks. And here I thought he was asleep,” Max cheered.
“Fuck off, puppy.” Keon snorted. With his huge bulked-up body, everyone around him looked like midgets. He resumed his position, with his head leaned back and eyes half-closed.
“Spot on, Keon. We need to put a protection team in place for him and his family,” Lance said, scrolling through some pictures on the screen. “Their house is in a fairly new neighborhood; therefore, the security isn’t up to par in the area just yet.”
“We might have to put someone inside their house,” Rhone speculated. “An uncle visiting from LA?”
“Ugh, and I suppose it’s my turn,” Jack mumbled. He swallowed the last of his coffee. “I think someone else should take this one. You know how I feel about kids, especially a teenager. Keon. Yeah, you’re the best with kids out of all of us.”
“No!” Keon and Rhone said simultaneously.
Jack glanced toward Max and Lance, who just shrugged. Keon sat upright and ran his hands over his eyes.
“You look tired, mate. What’s up?” Jack wanted to know, not bothering to hide his concern. They had been friends for the past fifteen years but there were times that Keon tuned out; sometimes for weeks. No one but Rhone knew why and they never prodded. It was an unspoken code between the friends. If one needed to talk, they would do it of their own accord. Don’t push. They all assumed it had to do with the death of his family six years ago.
Keon’s shoulders moved in a rolling motion. “We need to talk to Douglas. Where is he now, Lance?”
“Douglas is in the Hart Senate office building on Constitution Avenue, on the top floor. White told him to expect a visit from us sometime this week.”
“Ask Savannah to call and see if he’s available, Lance. The sooner we get his full story about the threats, the quicker we can formalize a protection plan,” Rhone instructed him. With a nod Lance left the room.
“What about the threats? Are we going to try and trace back to the source?” Max asked. He sat forward eagerly. He was the IT guru of the team, who alongside his cousin, Quinlan Shaw, best friend to Rhone’s brother Ruark, had designed many successful programs for the Government.
“Goes without saying, Max. We don’t need to wait for Douglas before we start digging. Get into his virtual world and do your magic.” Keon winked in his direction and stretched lazily.
“Meeting is confirmed with Douglas at ten. He said to walk past his receptionist, to the next door. It leads straight into his office.” Lance relayed the message to Keon and Jack as he sank back into his chair. “Oh, and make sure you park out of sight and appear innocuous. We don’t want anyone to become suspicious in case they’re keeping an eye on the building.”
“No one knows who I am, nor Jack, for that matter,” Keon grunted as he rose and stretched his arms above his head. “At least, I don’t think so.”
“Maybe not, Keon, but with your fucking huge body, no one can miss you. Not to mention your caveman locks. At least wear a cap to hide it,” Max piped up. He obviously loved to goad Keon who wore his hair long. Today, they were tied back neatly in a ponytail.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got this. Old man Keon and I know how to bullshit the masses,” Jack said with a wink at Lance and Max.
“Yeah, like you did in Cuba.” Rhone quipped and everyone laughed.
“Trust you to mention the one time we fucked up.” Jack grumbled, but then laughed with them.
“We didn’t fuck up, mate. It wasn’t our fault that those young ladies couldn’t keep their hands off us. Besides, it only delayed the operation a little bit.”
“Four days!” Lance exclaimed. “While the two of you gorged your cocks.”
“Yeah, well, there were eight of them. We had to make sure we did a proper job. And besides, we had all the information we needed after that. Two of the ladies were direct links to the Cuban syndicate.”
“Not that either of you knew it at the time,” Rhone chuckled. “Off the subject. Club Devil’s Cove will be opening next weekend. Are you guys ready?”
“Hell, yeah!” they responded boisterously.
“What about the bar counter? It requires very detailed carving. Will it be finished in time? Keon asked Rhone, who smirked evilly in response.
“It will be done in time. I have no doubt.”
“That expression doesn’t bode well for someone. I just hope whoever it is, knows what’s coming.” Keon didn’t probe. It wasn’t in his nature. “Well, Master Jack, lift your lazy ass and let’s go. It’s a good forty minute drive.”
* * * * * * * *
“How did you get this number?” she snapped, immediately furious when she recognized Bulldog’s nasal voice, or rather—Adam Baxter, as she’d found out after she’d quit. He’d been her longtime ‘handler’ during her years of service at Silver Sting—a covert operation unit in the Special Activities Division of the CIA. They mostly recruited from the Joint Operations Command and then trained those candidates through an extensive course to become a clandestine intelligence officer. It was the most secretive and elite operations forces in the world.
In the CIA, all assassins were allocated a handler. The fact, that she’d been forced into it at the time, hardly mattered. Not to anyone in the division, least of all Adam Baxter—the assistant deputy director of the National Clandestine Service (NCS).
He’d seen her potential as a sharpshooter and had used her vulnerability and rage to draw her into service. Growing up on a farm, shooting had been a way of life. She’d learned to shoot young—at four years old. By the time she’d turned sixteen she’d had no family left and had been too numb to know what was happening to her until it was too late. Ten years, they took ten years of her life and turned her into a well-oiled killing machine.
The first person she’d killed had been the man responsible for the death of her entire family; her father, mother, two older brothers and her fifteen-year-old sister.
It had been Samantha’s seventeenth birthday when she took her first hit.
I guess it was too good to be true. She mused. It has been six years since she heard his voice. Six years of bliss and becoming human again. Doing what she loved—artisanal carpentry. Carving intricate patterns into the natural lines of a piece of wood was immensely therapeutic.
“Come now, Ace. You didn’t really believe I would forget about you that easily, now did you?”
“My name is Samantha Frazer,” she said coldly. She was hard pressed not to end the connection. Ace, was her codename. She hated it. Hated everything that went along with it—the acts of violence it had forced her into, but most of all, the memories and nightmares.
“I need you for a job,” he continued. His attitude was as bombastic as she remembered.
“I don’t work for you anymore, Bulldog.”
“You know better than to use names,” he barked and then laughed.
Samantha cringed at the memories that his hoarse laugh uncovered. How his laughter had been the conduit to succeeding in her early years; the drive that had pushed her to her limits. To show him that she had the strength and skill to avenge her family.
“You will always work for me, Ace. I told you that the day you waltzed out of my office. Besides, how can you say no to a few million dollars?”
Samantha simmered. It always boiled down to money for him. He believed it was what made the world go round.
Well, those fucking days are over, asshole! I’m not the naive young girl you managed to manipulate for so long.
“I don’t need money. Leave me alone, Bulldog. I told you; I’ll never do a job for you again. As the saying goes, over my dead body”
He went silent for a moment, and then he sighed. A warning went off. Her fingers tightened on the phone.
“How about ov
er your sister’s dead body then?”
“That joke isn’t remotely funny. Fuck off, you bastard. You and I have nothing to say to one another.”
“Oh, but I think we do. I think I’ll be receiving a call from you soon enough, after you’ve opened the email I just sent.” His laugh was short. “Don’t make me wait too long, Ace. This target has been a thorn in my side for years. It’s time to get him out of the way.”
He ended the connection with those cryptic words.
“And that is exactly why I left! A thorn in your side!”
Samantha had begun to realize that Bulldog had been using her for his personal vendetta. The last two jobs, before she walked out, had been for his personal gain and not to protect the nation; most definitely not to the benefit of the people of the United States. He’d been using her to cover his own shit. The last one had been the deal breaker. That day he’d expected her to kill an innocent woman and child.
She sighed and sat down behind her desk. It was a relief that not everyone had died that day. She stared at her laptop.
“What the fuck are you up to, Adam Baxter? You don’t have anything of value to hold over my head. Not even this company. It’s immaterial and it means nothing to me,” she muttered, still not opening his email.
She didn’t want to. It was a life she’d put behind her. Over—done with, and she was never going back to it. No matter what.
The sense of foreboding wouldn’t dissipate however and Samantha knew that opening the email would yank her right back into a world of destruction she had sworn, she would never go back to.
Her finger hovered over the buttons of her laptop. She sat staring at the blinking cursor over the words, ‘Open secure file’. This was how all her assignments were sent in the past—encrypted, with a series of passwords.
“Suck it up, Samantha. You know you don’t have a choice. He won’t stop hounding you. At least opening the fucking thing will tell you what hold, he believes, he has over you.”
Her finger hit the key. She unlocked the file with the three required passwords. It was a photo. At first it was blurry, but smoothed out after a couple of seconds.
“No! God, no.” Her voice sounded raw with disbelief. “How is it possible?” It was Lauren. Her sister. “She’s supposed to be dead!”
Samantha didn’t doubt for one moment that it was Lauren. She was sixteen years older than the last time Samantha had seen her but she recognized her immediately. They had always been mistaken for twins because their features were so similar. The only difference was the hair color. Where Samantha was a blonde, Lauren had auburn hair.
Samantha traced a finger over her sister’s face on the screen, blinking when her features blurred due to the tears she couldn’t withhold.
“God, Lauren, how is it possible? Where are you?”
A young girl, probably a twelve or thirteen-year-old, stood next to Lauren, hugging her around the waist.
Who is this kid? And where is my sister? How is she even alive?
The questions kept milling through Samantha’s mind. She had seen the bullet hit Lauren’s chest, felt the blood splattered all over her face.
“Fuck! I saw death in her eyes!”
Lauren had saved Samantha. She had fallen on top of Samantha, who had hit her head going down, knocking her unconscious. The thieves had obviously believed her to be dead as well.
“What the fuck is going on? And just what does Adam Baxter have to do with my sister begin alive?”
Samantha picked up the cell phone to make the call to him, but let it clatter back to the desk. She shook her head.
“Not until I know more. One way or the other I need to find some kind of edge; something to keep Bulldog from gaining control over me.”
She picked up her cell phone again and called the only friend she’d made in the past sixteen years, Ziva Roberts, or Wolf, since she married Slade Wolf two years ago. Ziva would know someone who had enough contacts to help her search for Lauren covertly.
“It has to be undetectable because if Bulldog finds out I’m fishing, he might just kill Lauren to spite me. Or worse, the little girl.”
Chapter Three
“I’m so glad you decided to come and talk to Bracus personally. It’s been too long since we visited,” Ziva said. She hugged Samantha briefly, before they sat down in one of the plush leather sofas that were scattered all over the entertainment area of Club Alpha Cove.
Samantha loved the ambience of the club. She’d noticed Rhone Greer was mirroring this design, to an extent, in Club Devil’s Cove. Except for the bar. She glanced toward the steel and glass bar in the center of the room. The heavy wooden bar she was still scrambling to finish, in time for their opening the following weekend, was massive and covered an entire length of wall of their entertainment area.
“That’s true. Since you married Slade and had the twins, I haven’t seen much of you in Washington. How are Sean and Dean?”
“Those two are too clever for their own good.”
“Don’t you ever miss journalism?” Samantha wondered aloud. She’d met Ziva ten years ago in Michigan, when she’d been doing an investigative piece on a senator, while Samantha had been protecting him at the time. That’s how she had balanced her life during her early years in the field. It wasn’t just killing.
“At first, I thought I would, but my boys keep me so busy, I don’t have the time to miss it. Not to mention my gorgeous hubby.”
“You still have the sparkle in your eyes.”
Samantha tried to keep the yearning out of her voice. Lately, the loneliness had become too much. She’d been thinking more and more along the lines of a relationship; maybe, with someone like Rhone Greer. Her stomach knotted just thinking about his muscled physique.
Ziva got a faraway look in her eyes. “I hit the jackpot with Slade, Samantha. He still makes my knees go weak with a single look. The one he gets just before he turns all Dom on me. I get shivers just thinking of him approaching me with his ropes.”
“He does beautiful sculptures with you and his ropes.”
“Not to mention what he does to my tingling bits,” Ziva cooed.
“Talking of your tingling bits, my love,” Slade’s deep voice interjected from behind them. “Are you ready? I’ve got a suspended rope scene in mind for you tonight.”
He leaned over and kissed her in her neck. Samantha witnessed goosebumps race across Ziva’s skin in response.
“How are you, Samantha? You should visit us at the house. I’m sure the twins would love to see their godmother again.”
Samantha shook her head at his teasing smile. She’d been flabbergasted when Ziva had chosen her for the honor; which, because of her history, she’d declined. Of course, Ziva, who didn’t know about her real vocation, would have none of it and declared her the godmother anyway.
“I do miss them. I wish I lived closer, so I could visit more regularly.”
“Where are you staying this weekend?” Ziva asked immediately.
“At a hotel nearby.”
“Oh, hell no. When we leave, we’re gonna pick up your stuff and you’re coming with us to spend the weekend. That way, you’ll be around if Bracus needs more information.” She turned to Slade. “Is he here, yet?”
Slade looked around and lifted his hand to wave. “Yep, here he comes.”
Samantha glanced up. Her body involuntarily turned to ice. She found it strange that his massive body and swagger always seemed to trigger a memory in her mind, of her fateful last assignment.
It wasn’t him. He just has the same physique.
Samantha had been unable to forget the man’s face, even after six years. Even over the distance, his features had been branded in her mind—of the man staring up, kneeling next to the dead woman and child.
“It’s good to see you again, Sammy.”
Samantha didn’t even bother to correct the big man. He’d been calling her Sammy since the first day she’d run into him and fallen smack on her ass from the i
mpact.
Samantha was well acquainted with the Senior Masters of Club Alpha Cove, since she’d attended the club with Ziva and Slade during her visits.
“I love coming to this club,” she responded with a smile. “Hopefully I’ll see you guys at Club Devil’s Cove in Washington in future?”
“Ah, yeah, I won’t have much of a choice. My brother will make sure I do,” Bracus growled, but affectionately.
Samantha frowned. “Your brother?”
“Yeah, Keon LeLuc. He’s an equal shareholder in Club Devil’s Cove with Rhone Greer, Ruark’s brother. Haven’t you met them yet? They’re around quite often.”
“I’ve met Rhone because I’m doing the carpentry work at the new club, but I didn’t realize he was Ruark’s brother. And I guess they’ve not been here at the same time I’ve been. I would’ve remembered meeting your brother,” Samantha said thoughtfully.
“You’ll probably meet him tonight. Keon and Rhone were in New York for business today and decided to extend their visit for the weekend.”
“Well, you seem to have everything under hand, mate. My sub is scheduled for some tender loving in my ropes, so, we’ll leave you to discuss Samantha’s problem,” Slade interjected and with a wink in her direction, he picked up Ziva. Ignoring her indignant shriek, he hitched her over his shoulder and carried her toward the dungeon.
Bracus sat down next to her in the sofa unaware of how her entire body became flushed at the thought of running into Rhone. His gaze turned serious.
“Talk to me, Sammy.”
She cleared her throat. She regrouped and scrambled for the right words. Memories had morphed into fiction in her mind, like it happened to someone else. She didn’t understand why she still carried the guilt. She wasn’t to blame for the deaths of her family members, but maybe she carried survivor’s guilt. Why was it that an infraction of the mind, wandering a path that was destined to go unnoticed, brought such grief?
Perhaps it was a warning that she shouldn’t have expectations of happiness. Perhaps the guilt in itself was a warning; to look through doors she couldn’t enter, would bring only sorrow. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that ignoring this particular ‘door’ would bring worse pain. Samantha had instinctively known that, the moment she’d recognized her sister on the photograph. Walking away would hurt all the more.