by Lucy Score
She let out a breath, walking through the scene in her mind again. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“Me, too,” he said, giving her that boyish grin that had charmed women from screens for the last decade. “So exactly how did you end up letting Saint back in your bed?”
Waverly gave him a playful shove. “You of all people should understand the power of the irresistible male.”
“Waves, the way he looks at you? It’s not just a hot fuck he’s after.”
It was her turn to kick at the ground. “I know,” she said. “We’re going to give this couple thing a real try.”
“Is that wise?”
One night, long ago while shooting on location, Waverly had confessed to Dante just how badly her heart had been smashed to bits over Xavier. Dante had patted her head, promised her she’d find someone more worthy of her in the future, and then dragged her out to a karaoke bar. Despite his outward appearance, Dante was a good, solid friend.
“I have no idea if it’s wise or not, but I can’t seem to help myself.”
“He loves you, you know. You can see it in the way he devours you with his eyes every time you enter a room. It’s like a light turns on, and then he’s glaring at me for looking in your general direction.”
“Which you probably do just to piss him off,” Waverly predicted.
“Guilty as charged. Just be careful there, Waves. You’ve got a lot tied up in this guy, and he’s putting his entire life on the line for you. If you aren’t careful, you could get hurt again, or you could wreck him.”
“Whose side are you on anyway?” Waverly asked.
Dante threw an arm around her shoulder and ruffled her hair. “Always yours, my love. But I do have a newfound kinship with your Saint since I met Petra.”
“You’re dead serious right now, aren’t you?”
“I kid you not, my dear Sinner. She’s beautiful, kind, sweet, and she thinks I’m the most incredible man on the face of the earth. What’s not to be in love with?”
Waverly grinned up at him. “I’m happy for you, Dante. Shocked, but happy.”
“She’s not like us,” he sighed. “Not jaded and afraid to be vulnerable. She makes my world bigger.”
“Wow. That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard you say about a woman.”
Dante laughed. “I know. I can’t wait until this bit of nastiness is over. I’m going to marry that girl and find out what all the fuss is about normal.”
“Will it be enough for you?” Waverly asked. What she wanted to ask was if it would be enough for her.
“What does it matter how big my next movie is? Or if I do another twenty missions for some government agency? I’m still going home to my empty house afterwards. I want someone to be there at the end of the day. Someone who cares about me, someone I can’t wait to talk to. That’s the part that matters. It’s the sharing that counts, not the life in between.”
“Holy crap, Dante. Did Petra feed you some kind of love potion? I’ve never heard you talk this way.”
“Love makes everything clearer,” he said, turning his face up to the sun.
In Waverly’s experience, love only muddied things and made them infinitely more complicated.
“So how are you going to get Grigory to give his blessing?” she teased.
“I’ll just sweep him off his feet like I do everyone,” Dante said, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder.
He spun around in the golden sunshine, and Waverly giggled like a girl without a care in the world.
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Xavier watched them through the window. His Angel and the man he’d thought she loved. There was an easiness between them, something that had never been present in his own relationship with Waverly. Nothing had ever been easy for them. Every step forward was a hard-fought battle.
He envied the history she shared with Dante. A history during which he’d never let her down. Xavier, on the other hand, had abandoned her. Where Dante was playful and charming, Xavier was broody and intense. He’d been told so by every woman in his life beginning with his mother and ending with Calla.
His stomach clutched as he watched Dante pick her up and toss her over his shoulder. He could hear her laughter, light and easy, through the window.
Waverly might not have been in love with Dante, but she did love him. She trusted him. And Xavier wanted that with her... and so much more. He wanted to be the one to give her everything, to make her laugh, to make her smile, to make her come. He wanted to be her everything.
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Things moved quickly on their end. The Invictus Advance team had ranked their choice of public locations for a sting operation, and while Xavier and Micah weighed the options, Waverly poured over the profiles of employees who would be involved in the operation.
Chelsea set her sights on tracking down Brad’s partner and spent hours staring and swearing at her laptop.
Anatoli worked with the hand-selected security staff from Invictus to keep the house locked down and took on the bulk of the cooking. Dante and Petra were caught making out in a variety of nooks and crannies around the estate.
Kate coordinated with Roz for the rest of the supplies they needed, and Grigory handled his business from the house trying to make sure his presence was still felt publicly.
Xavier found Waverly in their room staring off into space, the laptop open in front of her. She looked so serious and focused the way she bit her lip as she stared at the screen. He loved this side of her, too, he realized, the competent operative. She had always taken her work seriously, and it had clearly transferred to her moonlighting.
“Angel?” he said softly, sliding onto the bed next to her.
When she looked at him, it wasn’t with the brooding frown. Her face lit up, and he felt the knots in his gut that had been there since he saw her with Dante smooth out. “Micah and I are going to scout out the two potential sites for the sting.”
“I promise to stay here,” she teased.
“You’re damn right you will,” he said, leaning over to look at the screen and brush his lips over her hair.
“What do you think of her?” Waverly asked, showing him the picture. She was a pretty brunette with bright blue eyes.
Xavier studied the picture. “She’s good. Still new to the field, but she’s got good instincts.”
Waverly closed the laptop and reeled him in with his tie. “You look concerned,” she said, pressing a kiss to his lips.
“There are a lot of ways this can go wrong,” he reminded her. “We’re making assumptions here that we can’t be one hundred percent sure about.”
“We’ll make it work,” she promised. “We stay flexible and vigilant, and when we close this deal, Brad will be behind bars.”
“And you and I will be lying on a sandy beach in Barbados,” Xavier predicted with a heavy sigh.
She laughed. “You and Barbados.”
“I love you, Angel,” he breathed.
She bit her lip. “I might be getting used to hearing you say it.”
“There’s a lot more you’re going to have to get used to,” he said wolfishly.
“Go do your recon and come back to me,” she said. “Bring pizza.”
He kissed her good-bye and reluctantly broke away from her before she could tangle her fingers in his hair and convince him to stick around a while longer.
She looked up at him, her lips swollen and pink, her eyes wide and trusting. Was it any wonder he was willing to go this far for her? “Behave,” he reminded her, before giving her a final squeeze and walking out.
He and Micah hadn’t been gone for ten minutes when Waverly called Xavier’s phone. “There’s been a new development,” she warned him.
“Don’t tell me Grigory murdered Dante,” Xavier quipped.
“Cute. Grigory just got a call from building security for the condo he keeps in the city. Someone broke in between two and three a.m. t
his morning.”
“Petra’s gone, so Tomasso went after Grigory,” Xavier guessed.
“Thank God you talked him into staying here,” Waverly said.
“This means he’s getting desperate, Angel,” he warned.
“I know. Watch your back for me.”
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Xavier and Micah returned that afternoon with the logistics mostly worked out and enough pizza to feed their small army. With the location set for the sting, he gave Waverly the go ahead to text Brad with instructions and the account number that Chelsea set up for her. When she received a terse “okay” in response, there was nothing more for her to do but wait. And eat pizza.
As much as he wanted to be alone with Waverly, Xavier knew he couldn’t afford the distraction. He would make it up to her once this was over and she was safe. There were details to see to and plans to put into motion. So he chose to work in the media room turned war room. Everyone had a job to do, and had the situation not been so tense, Xavier would have been amused by the ways in which they all worked.
Waverly sprawled on the floor at his feet in the media room pouring over street and aerial views of downtown L.A. while he juggled team assignments and worked out positions for his undercover operatives. Micah spent a good two hours in the garage running through the inventory of gear Roz had delivered to them at the house.
Kate and Petra dug through the Roz-supplied wardrobe for just the right outfits for the exchange.
They were running with eight onsite players. Xavier had another five in reserve who would be a mobile Plan B in case it all went to hell. Micah would be heading that team. Between making out with Petra and verbally sparring with Grigory, Dante got in touch with his agent and publicist to let them know he was back in town, but that the news was to stay hush-hush for now.
They had yet to hear back from Travers, and it was starting to make Xavier itchy. Something was up.
Dante strolled into the room wearing black skinny jeans and a loose gray V-neck worn under a faded blue blazer.
“How do I look?” he asked, doing a slow twirl in front of Waverly.
She looked up at him from the floor and held her hand out to him. Dante pulled her to her feet. “Very sexy,” Waverly grinned. “And very alive. Brad is going to crap his pants when he gets a load of you tomorrow.”
Xavier studied their interaction. He could see how the world had fallen for their relationship. Waverly was a phenomenal actress, of course, but the easy affection she and Wrede had for each other was real. And even knowing that their love affair had been just another part to play, it didn’t make the reality of their friendship any less disconcerting.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Waverly. Okay, to be fair, there were a handful of situations in which he didn’t. Namely if there was danger, she’d run to it with open arms. But in this particular instance, it was Wrede he didn’t trust.
Waverly glanced back at Xavier, those eyes bright and warm, her silky tresses tossed over her shoulder. She stood between the two alleged loves of her life and she was looking at him. Xavier felt the warmth that always flooded his chest when she looked at him like that. She had to love him, even if she wasn’t willing to say the words yet. But until he heard those words from her, he’d still feel the urge to pound Wrede into the ground. And he’d still worry that she wasn’t one hundred percent his.
Xavier’s mental torture was interrupted by Micah climbing the stairs.
“That was Travers,” he said, stuffing his cellphone into a pocket. “We’ve got a problem.”
“I bet it’s the same problem I’ve got,” Chelsea said, storming into the room from the hallway, laptop in hand.
“Ladies first,” Micah insisted.
“Tomasso moved twenty-five million into the account all right. He did it from the shell corporation in Luxembourg.”
“Which is what we asked him to do,” Waverly clarified.
“Yeah, but he also moved fifteen million into a brand spanking new account in the Cayman Islands and another nine million to a new account in Switzerland. Both are in your name.”
“What?” Waverly asked, her eyes wide.
“That dovetails with my news,” Micah said grimly. “Travers caught wind of a new investigation that just got handed down in the L.A. office. The FBI is looking into one Waverly Sinner on the suspicion of running unsanctioned ops in the country, including the possible abduction of Petra Stepanov.”
Xavier shoved out of his chair so hard it flipped over. Waverly seemed frozen in place, her face pale and her jaw set. He pulled her into him as if he could protect her from the words. She looked up at him, shocked, but at his touch, something fiercer than shock bloomed behind her eyes.
It pleased him more than he could say to see that Waverly was ready to kick someone in the balls instead of wilt under the new threat.
“I don’t get it,” Kate piped up. “Petra, do you feel kidnapped?”
“No, of course not,” she said, cuddling into Dante’s side. “I feel very safe.”
“Give you three guesses who tipped them off,” Micah said, swiping a hand through his thick, dark hair.
“That sneaky wanker,” Dante muttered, stroking a hand through Petra’s hair.
“Travers is on his way over, but we already know we can’t count on the feds’ help tomorrow,” Micah said, flopping down on the sectional and loosening his tie.
Waverly gave Xavier’s arm a squeeze and slipped out of his grasp. She walked over to one of the shelving units that framed the TV and stared without seeing at the books and designer knickknacks before her. She crossed her arms, drumming her fingertips on her biceps.
“Waverly Sinner’s gone off the deep end,” she murmured to herself. “She kidnapped a celebrity we were in negotiations with for a reality show. Maybe she wanted the show and got jealous? She just had that stay in rehab. We know she’s not stable.” She frowned thoughtfully. “So where would the money have come from?”
Xavier watched in fascination as Waverly worked her way through the problem.
Her eyes lit up. “He’s going to pin all the backdoor deals on me. He obviously can’t disavow the legitimate operations we’ve done for other agencies. But no one else knows about his side ops.”
“Besides his partner,” Xavier reminded her.
Waverly moved away from the shelves and stood in front of a cheerful window seat to stare out into the fall night.
“This would throw any suspicion off of them, if they can hang it all on me. ‘She did a few jobs for us and must have gotten cocky or greedy. She thought she could moonlight—’” She froze where she was and then turned slowly to face Xavier.
And Xavier knew exactly what she was thinking. “Dante,” he said.
She nodded at him.
“What?” Dante asked.
Waverly held her breath and waited for Xavier to say it.
“They think you’re dead,” Xavier answered. “So why not pin that on Waverly, too?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Malachi arrived with the setting sun to a tense crowd gathered upstairs. He’d lost his jacket somewhere during the course of the day. His tie was askew, sleeves rolled up, and his narrow shoulders hunched. Waverly kept herself between Xavier and Malachi, just in case Xavier was feeling ready to fight.
“Agent Travers,” Petra rose so quickly the fashion magazine she’d been reading tumbled to the floor. “How can the FBI think that Waverly kidnapped me? She saved my life! I will tell them this.”
Grigory nodded gruffly coming to his daughter’s side. “Of course we will tell them, my daughter.” He patted her hand.
“I’m sure that will be a big help, Mr. Stepanov,” Travers said unconvincingly.
“How exactly does Brad think he’s going to get away with pinning a fake kidnapping on you?” Dante asked Waverly.
Her gaze skimmed to Petra and Grigory and back to him. Xavier saw realization dawn on Dante’s face. The ma
n swiped a hand through his perfectly styled curls.
“What? What are you not saying, darling?” Petra frowned.
Dante went to her and reached for her other hand. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you or your father, okay?”
“What is he saying?” Grigory demanded, his usually flushed face pale and covered with a light sheen of sweat.
“What he’s saying,” Xavier began. “Is that Tomasso is counting on there not being any witnesses left. If he is trying to cover his tracks, once he has possession of your daughter and you sign over the drug licenses, he has no more use for either of you.”
Petra gasped and clasped Dante and her father’s hands to her chest. “No!” Pixie, the tiny ball of fluff, yipped from her pink satin cushion as if responding to her mother’s distress.
“We aren’t going to let that happen,” Dante promised.
Malachi joined Waverly and Xavier. “Travers, what the fuck is going on in your office?” Xavier demanded.
Malachi shook his head. “All I know is it came from somewhere on high. They’ve got ten agents assigned.”
“Isn’t that practically your entire office?” Micah asked, approaching with a diet soda in his hand.
“Do you think Brad’s partner leaned on someone?” Waverly asked Malachi.
The man shrugged. “I think it’s likely. We’re the FBI. We don’t move that fast without extreme motivation.”
“How does this work without the FBI?” Waverly asked. “The whole point of the plan is to catch Brad in the act. We can’t just walk up to him and yell ‘citizen’s arrest.’”
Xavier shook his head. “It’s too late to move the exchange. If we put it off, it puts you at risk in case the feds are tailing one of their own,” he looked pointedly at Malachi.