Shit.
“Good thing we cleaned your flat out,” Snake commented in a whisper, standing next to him.
Ian shot him a look.
“Pete, what else?” he asked.
Pete’s sigh was warning enough. “Body of a young girl turned up in Monrovia. Tests are still being run, but looks like it might match the victim on the crime video you copied over.” He stopped, took a deep breath and continued, “One of the safe houses in Paris, killed a guard and someone else we were watching. Another in Moscow. Technically belonging to one Yorin Balorsky.”
Ian took a deep breath, his thoughts shifting. “What’s the plan?”
“Dimitri Petrolov must be seen dead.”
The camera scanned the area behind the news announcer to show the charred remains of the club. And there were two men he knew. Worked for one of the other bosses. Hoping for him, were they?
“And how do you plan to . . .” He remembered where he was and stopped. “We’ll meet later today. Three here at the hotel.”
“I’ll get protection for your family.”
Ian weighed his options. “I’ll hire my own protection for my family. You’ve got a damn leak and I’m not about to gamble on their lives against an unknown traitor.”
“How many do you have?” Pete asked.
He looked at Roth. “Get me Gar.”
Roth raised a brow. “For what?”
Ian merely stared at him.
“Fine.”
“Pete,” Ian said back into the phone.
“Today at three. Goddamn mess you created.”
“I created?”
“Wherever you go, people die, things blow up, I never the hell know. Just keep a fucking low profile. I don’t need to be cleaning up crap this side of the Atlantic. We’re scrambling here as it is.”
“Who’s behind the fires?”
Pete sighed again. Darya was clutching his leg and he looked down into those round blue eyes and ran his hand over her curls.
“Who knows. Hellinski’s stuff is blowing up all over Eastern Europe. The odds are on the other families, who don’t want his sister getting her hands on them. The other is that they are after you. I tend to think it’s a bit of both. Why worry about two birds when you can take care of them together?”
“News just in . . .” the announcer was saying. “Another residence has been firebombed in the town of Kladno . . .” The picture clicked to another announcer.
“Damn.” There sat the town house, windows blown out of it, fire licking up the side. Firemen were behind the gates.
“Bloody hell, they’re hitting them all,” Rori muttered.
Darya whimpered against him. He looked down and saw tears in her eyes. He looked back at the television. He shifted her, but she looked again and pointed to the TV, her mouth working but no sounds coming out.
“What? Sweetheart?” he asked.
Pete said, pulling his attention back to their conversation, “You see? You may be one of the best damn agents I have, but this . . . this . . .”
“This is the end, Pete. No more. I told you that. Today. Three.” With that, he handed the phone back to Aiden, then picked Darya up and set her on the table.
John walked in and glanced at the television. His gaze shifted back to Ian. “Didn’t take them long, did it?” He grabbed his phone and strode back out the door.
Darya stared at the television. Maybe she didn’t recognize it.
But the pale face, the tears that tracked over her face . . .
She looked at him again, her brows furrowed, questions in her wet eyes.
“What?” he asked her in Russian. “What’s the matter, pumpkin? You’re safe.” Gently he wiped the tears away.
She pointed back to the screen and whispered, “Zoy?”
He blinked. She talked.
“Zoy?” he asked.
Hurriedly she nodded and pointed back to the house. “Zoy.”
“The sister,” Rori muttered.
He closed his eyes and picked his daughter up. Looking at Aiden, he said, “We’re going upstairs. Right now I have things to do.”
“We’ve a few questions ourselves,” Aiden said.
They all probably did, but they wouldn’t be getting answers. He’d have to leave. Looking at his brothers, he said, “You told me if I ever needed anything . . .”
All three nodded. Aiden said, “Anything.”
He kissed Darya’s hair and looked at his brother without another word.
“Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” Jock barked.
Ian ignored him and finally said to Aiden, “I may need you to watch over my daughter.”
Aiden’s eyes shifted from him to the girl to Rori then back to him. “You’re leaving?”
“Probably.” He started to walk toward the door.
“Always things for you to do, to leave,” Jock said.
Ian stopped, tightened his hold on his daughter, but didn’t turn around. He took a deep breath. What did he care what the old man thought. Thoughts and emotions, what he needed to do, what he wanted to do, what he’d have to do all crashing together in his brain, disjointed and jagged.
“I see some things haven’t changed. Is what you want always more important than your family?” Jock asked.
The tightness in his chest popped and Ian whirled, anger and rage at the man, at the things he couldn’t control, at what he was, at the pain in Darya’s eyes. “If I don’t do this, I might not have a family.” He pointed to the television screen. “You see that? Who do you think they’re looking for?”
John walked in, took one look at the situation. “Well, since you’re spouting off, I guess I might as well tell you that they hit the London safe house.”
He closed his eyes, fury hot and heavy in his veins. “How many?”
“Luckily it was empty.” John ran a hand through his hair. “They’re only making a statement.”
“What the hell do you do?” Jock asked. “They said the Czech underground. Are you some sort of criminal? I knew . . . I told you . . .” Jock trailed off, his eyes an angry blue.
“Never to come home?” Ian lashed out, no longer caring. “I didn’t come home for you,” he lied. “I needed to make certain Mom and my brothers were safe.” He quickly scanned their faces. “You’re all getting protection. Period. And if you fight me on this, I’ll get it legally and have you moved to safe and secure locations. So no fucking remarks.”
Rori stared at his father. “You really have no idea who your son is, do you?” She slipped her hand in his arm. As they walked out of the room she said, “They’re like a dysfunctional Brody Bunch.”
Even though he felt like hitting something, or shooting it, his lips twitched. “That’s Brady Bunch, darling.”
Jesslyn started laughing. “I do love it when Jock gets all irate over something and makes an ass out of himself.”
Chapter 15
November 13, 3:15 p.m.
Ian sat with his back to the wall. Rori and John were upstairs watching Darya, the other kids, and his parents. The others were scattered around the hotel guarding whoever they were supposed to be.
Pete Jones, salt-and-pepper hair neatly combed in place, dressed in a suit, his two guards sitting to their right, stared at Ian.
The man had a long, apostolic face, clean-shaven and tired. Deep worry lines bracketed his mouth and etched his brows and eyes.
“You are in some very serious trouble,” he said, tapping his fingers on the tabletop.
Ian scanned the crowd. “Pete, the point of the meeting.”
Pete sat up. “You need to die.”
Ian arched a brow. “Which ‘you’ would you be referring to?”
The left side of Pete’s mouth lifted in what few would consider a smile. “Dimitri Petrolov. Who the hell else?”
Ian shrugged. “So take care of it.”
“You need to be seen as close to the job as possible to increase the credibility.”
Ian t
ilted his head, scanned the restaurant. Quinlan weaved through some of the customers, talking to one here, one there. Roth stood at the doorway shaking his head.
Why didn’t his family take him seriously? They’d had a huge row upstairs. His mother’s cold silence to his father could be felt across the room. He hadn’t meant to snap out the truth of why he’d left, but damn it, the man could still push all his buttons. Hadn’t he learned any control?
He rubbed his temple. What he wouldn’t give for a beach, sand, a drink. Nothing but ocean breeze and the knowledge all was well and . . . Rori. Or maybe take her back to Scotland.
“Did you hear what I said?” Pete asked him.
Ian met his boss’s hazel eyes. “I’m on the tired side. We caught the red-eye out of London last night, or would that be this morning.” He sipped his coffee. “What?”
“Next week, or later this week, you fly to Amsterdam. It’s being arranged.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“You’ll go in, walk out the basement, the house will explode, and the body they find will match dentally with Dimitri Petrolov.”
He smiled ruefully. “How convenient.”
“Why’d you come back here?” Pete asked, leaning back as the waitress set a salad in front of each of them. “You easily could have sent someone.”
“I could have, yes, but I wanted to assess the situation myself.” Ian wasn’t hungry. He rubbed his head.
“Headache?” Pete asked.
Undercover agents often went through debriefings, medical tests, and psychological tests to make certain they weren’t too close to the edge.
Ian wasn’t so certain he would pass as easily as he did the last time.
“Lack of sleep,” he said.
Pete asked. “Why the woman?”
He looked at one of the only men who knew his true identity. Pete was the only person Ian ever contacted with information other than John.
“I needed the image of a family. A family doesn’t leave a memory. A single father with a silent little girl is another matter.”
Pete nodded. “True. Who is she?”
Ian debated and then figured that John had already told his boss, who had filled Pete in, or then maybe not. But Ian knew Pete already had a file sitting on his desk on one Rori Maitland—Kinncaid. She was Rori Kinncaid. Ian studied his boss. Who was the leak? Was it Pete? His kneejerk reaction was no. But what if he was wrong?
“Hired to kill me, I believe, but she said things were off, so she didn’t. Saved my life, in fact. John said she used to work for MI6. Lenora.”
Pete sniffed. “Lenora Maitland.”
Tests. He hated fucking tests.
“Used to be MI6. Now supposedly she’s a businesswoman. Mercenary is the word on the streets.”
Assassin more like, but he wouldn’t cut semantics when he was legit only because he worked for the U.S. government.
Leaning up, he said, “When do I leave? I want your word my family will be protected. I’ll take John with me, but I’m leaving the rest of them, and I swear to you, Pete”—he looked straight into his boss’s eyes—“you don’t want anything happening to my family.”
Pete only returned his stare. “After the way your family was in the news all last year? No, I don’t want anything to happen to them. It’s one thing to cover up an obscure, unknown death of a traveling businessman. It’s another altogether when a well-known family is hit.” He shook his head. “The media fallout alone would be the end of my career.”
“You’d be worried about more than that,” Ian muttered.
“Is that a threat?” Pete asked.
He sighed. “I want the leak, Pete. I want a name.”
“I’m working on it.” Pete tossed money on the table and said, “Get some rest. You need to come in for testing from the looks of things, and for the debriefing. We need some intel on the latest shipments.”
“When this is over.”
Pete raised a brow.
“The testing. When this is over.” When this was over, he was done and wouldn’t need testing, they both knew it.
“Eight a.m. I want a brief on my desk on shipments and any laundering, any fronting,” Pete said.
Shipments of girls, drugs he knew about. And the whole reason for his cover to begin with. The fact that many Eastern European brothels and bosses were fronts to a deeper worry. Terrorists. Lots of field agents these days thanks to 9/11.
At least on the terrorism front, Hellinski had been clean—or mostly. He’d been low enough, yet involved enough on rare occasions that information flowed a bit more easily than it otherwise would have. Had Elianya been involved in something of that scale? Who the fuck knew.
He nodded.
When Pete started to stand, he said, “You get anything on Darya?”
Pete shook his head. “Not yet. But that doesn’t mean anything. And you know that.” Those shrewd hazel eyes bore into him. “What are you going to do with her if no one claims her?”
He returned the stare. “What do you think I’m going to do?”
Pete shook his head. “Just when I think most are too cynical, someone will do something that shocks me.” The words were said so deadpan Ian knew sarcasm laced them.
Pete stood, then paused, straightening his jacket. “I’m keeping the detail on you and I want an itinerary.”
“I’ll think about it.” Ian watched him walk away, weaving in and out of the people.
He heard a little girl laugh at a nearby table as she ate a chocolate confection piled high with whipped cream and strawberries.
Maybe Darya would like one of those. He motioned to the waitress to box one up for him.
*****
Rori and John sat in the seating area of Mr. and Mrs. Kinncaid’s penthouse apartment. The two older kids kept trying to draw Darya into their camaraderie. But she wasn’t interested in the crayons or markers. She only looked at them when they got out a game. Finally, Ryan tilted his head and said, “You’re very quiet.”
“She doesn’t speak English, Ryan,” Rori told him.
Jock and Kaitlyn, who had been standing off by themselves, talking in hushed tones, turned at her words.
“What do you mean?” Jock asked, frowning.
The man always frowned. Personally, Rori thought he was an ass. He might have some good qualities, but she’d yet to see them.
“Exactly what I said, Mr. Kinncaid,” she frosted her words. “Darya doesn’t speak English, and in fact, this is the first we’ve heard her say anything at all.”
“Ever?” Kaitlyn asked, coming over to sit with Rori at the table. “But she must be—what?—five?”
Rori shrugged. To hell with it. Ian left her up here alone with his family. She’d make up her own bloody story. “We honestly don’t know.”
Their eyes widened, before Kaitlyn frowned again.
“She’s Ian’s daughter, isn’t she?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Maybe she’s adopted,” Ryan suggested.
Rori grinned at him. “Right on, boyo. We just adopted her last week.” Rori motioned for Darya to come to her and the girl did. She still didn’t know what to do with the girl, but she was becoming used to having her around. And knew, from experience, what it was to want a safe place.
Hell, had she ever truly known what a safe place was?
Darya climbed up into her lap and settled, still clutching the teddy bear.
“Where’s she from?” Kaitlyn asked.
Jock reached out to touch the girl and Darya shied, burrowing into Rori.
She looked up at the man, not caring if he saw her dislike or not. “We’re not certain of that either. Though Ian knows she speaks Russian.”
John cleared his throat.
“What?” she asked him. “They asked, I answered. He doesn’t want them to know, he should have said something before. I can’t read the man’s bloody mind.”
John’s lips twitched.
“How long have you two been married?” Mrs. Kinncaid asked.
>
Hell. How had she gotten to this point?
Was it all Darya? She brushed the girl’s hair with her hand. No. She might tell him that. But it was also that smile she rarely saw, lightning quick, and made him more . . . real.
“Long enough to know he’s difficult,” she evaded.
John laughed. “That’s our Ian.”
Mrs. Kinncaid looked past her and Darya to John. “You’ve worked with my son a long time, haven’t you?” She nodded. “Never mind. He’d never trust any of us with you if you weren’t his friend. Thank you.”
“My pleasure, Mrs. Kinncaid,” John answered.
Ryan had come up. He put his hand out to Darya. “Would you like to watch TV with us?” He pointed to the television.
She buried her head against Rori, the soft fruity scent of her tickling Rori’s nose.
Rori hugged her and smiled at Ryan. “Maybe later.”
The door opened and Ian strode in, looking a bit tired. In his hands was a clear container, chocolate, whipped cream, and strawberries.
Darya lifted her head from Rori’s shoulder and watched Ian walk to them, the smile on his face one of the real ones he seemed to reserve for Darya alone. The girl scrambled off her lap and hurried over to Ian, who scooped her up, his Russian throaty and deep as he spoke to her.
Darya smiled and nodded.
That smile swirled through the center of Rori. The child was beautiful when she smiled like that, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. And Ian . . .
His smile alone did more than swirl through the center of her.
He really could be her father. Same coloring and killer smiles. He set her down at the table and put the sugar mountain in front of her.
“Do you think she needs all of that?” Rori asked.
His eyes flashed his surprise and a remnant of his smile teased her. “Worried about her health, dear?”
She blinked. Damn man. What did she care? She shrugged. “I suppose so, yes. Shouldn’t I be?”
His smile grew. “Depends.”
“On what?” Mrs. Kinncaid asked. “Mothers try to keep the kids healthy and the fathers are stuck on spoiling them. You’re as bad as your father.”
Deadly Games Page 17