Fuel for Fire

by Julie Ann Walker

  He led the silent charge into the penthouse, the dart gun up and at the ready. They weren’t alone in the space. He picked up on that right away. Not because he could hear anything over the soft hum of electricity and his own racing pulse, but because the hair twanged on the back of his neck and his palms prickled.

  Thanks to the software Ozzie had installed on their phones, they could easily see that Chelsea’s iPhone was still inside the building. Of course, that didn’t mean Chelsea was. It could be anyone making Dagan’s instincts sit up and bark. A maid. A secretary. One of Morrison’s many girls-of-the-month.

  The possibility that Chelsea might have been removed to another location while her cell phone remained in residence was enough to have Dagan’s stomach threatening a revolt. And since there was nothing stealthy about blowing chunks, he pushed the possibility aside. Then his toe caught on something. When he glanced down, he saw it was Chelsea’s favorite trench coat, and he was suddenly thrown back in time, his mind ripped to a place of dust and danger and blood.

  “Sonofa—” Dagan didn’t finish the curse as he pulled his car to the side of the road, putting it in park and glancing toward the café where the meeting was supposed to occur. All the players were in place, seated at tables on the gritty sidewalk.

  All the players except him. He was late, thanks to having gotten stuck behind a vegetable merchant twenty blocks back. The man’s horse-drawn wagon had tipped over, sending produce tumbling all over the street. An entire crowd had rushed to help the merchant right his cart and reload his cargo, effectively stopping traffic in all directions and keeping Dagan hemmed in for a full fifteen minutes.

  Kabul was strange that way. On the one hand, it was a throwback to a gentler time. A time when people used animals for transportation and didn’t hesitate to jump in and help each other out of a jam. On the other hand, it was the harshest place Dagan had ever known, filled with flinty-eyed zealots who didn’t hesitate to “honor” kill their women for any perceived slight, or slit the throats of those they considered infidels.

  Dagan had been in the country for four years, and if he hadn’t needed to return home to help his little brother, he imagined he would have remained for at least a few more. He spoke the language, knew the customs, and had a nice network of assets who supplied him with Intel. But his brother came before flag and country. Since their parents had died—their mother of breast cancer and their father three years later of an aneurysm—Avan was all the family Dagan had left. Which brought him here, to this moment, handing off one of his assets, Abdul Waleed, to Agent Innes McShane, a black-bearded Boston boy with big shoulders and an even bigger smile.

  McShane and Waleed looked uncomfortable sitting at the little iron table, neither truly trusting the other without Dagan there to act as a bridge between them. Agent Terrence Walker was a few tables over, pretending to read a newspaper, but actually keeping an eye on McShane and Waleed. In a chair pushed up against the wall of the cafe sat Jordy Moore, another agent on hand for the encounter. The CIA did nothing by half-measures. Even the simple passing off of an asset from one handler to another required backup and more backup, and both men were dressed in the local style, blending in seamlessly with the population.

  When Moore took a sip of chai, a popular drink among the denizens of Kabul, and then blatantly looked at his watch, Dagan hastened his step. He had gone no more than half a dozen paces when Waleed suddenly reached beneath the front of his perahan tunban, the wide, knee-length billowy shirt worn by so many men in Afghanistan’s capital city. The move struck Dagan as odd.

  Then Waleed pushed to a stand, raised his face to the sun that turned the dust in the air to shiny specks of fairy powder, and yelled, “God is the greatest!” in Pashto.

  “No, Abdul!” Dagan bellowed just as he was blinded by a flash of bright, white light and deafened by the roar of the bomb Waleed had strapped to his chest.

  The percussive effects of the explosion knocked Dagan back two steps, but he remained on his feet. For a moment he was too stunned to do anything but stand in the middle of the street, blinking against the smoke and chaos around him, the screaming that seemed miles away, and the flurry of people that scattered and ran in all different directions. Then, reality set in and he sprinted to the smoldering ruin that was once the café, trying to find anything familiar, anyone familiar.

  There was nothing but smoke and destruction and the smell of melted flesh.

  The toe of his boot bumped something, and when he looked down, he saw it was McShane’s baby-blue perahan tunban. The shirt was deep crimson in spots and completely missing Agent McShane.

  Dagan leaned down, and the closer inspection revealed his mistake. The shirt wasn’t missing McShane. It was simply that McShane had been beheaded and dismembered by the blast. His bloody torso was still intact inside the shirt and Dagan felt as if his own chest had been ripped open, exposing his heart to the hot, dusty air. Bile burned the back of his throat like sulfuric acid. As he retched dryly, the only thing he could think was…why?

  A nudge on his shoulder yanked him back into the present. He turned to see Christian squinting at him, his ski mask obscuring what Dagan knew was a fierce frown.

  Shit. He hated the flashbacks. They always came unexpectedly and at the worst possible times.

  Waving a dismissive hand, even though he would swear the smell of charred flesh stung his nose, he stepped over Chelsea’s coat. He could feel Ace and Christian on his heels, weapons drawn, and took comfort in the fact that his teammates were packing something more than little darts filled with thiopental. If whoever was inside the place wanted to get unfriendly, lead was far more likely to change their mind than a little tranquilizer.

  The banging of a pot told them the room directly in front of them was the kitchen. And it was occupied.

  Dagan jerked his chin. That was all the communication needed. After running countless ops together, they could pretty much read one another’s minds.

  Christian slunk around the corner, a soundless black shadow. He grabbed the woman loading the dishwasher, slapped a hand over her mouth, and spun her around. A heartbeat later, Dagan squeezed his trigger. The dart lodged in the woman’s thigh, and the drug took effect almost immediately. Her wide, dark eyes fluttered, and Christian softly lowered her to the tiles. After straightening, he jerked his masked chin toward the back of the penthouse, a wordless Done. Let’s get a move on.

  Dagan spared the unconscious woman a brief glance, but it was enough to show him she had one of those Bodies by Mattel. As in, she was more Barbie doll plastic than flesh and blood.

  Morrison certainly had a type. But while the cook’s physique came courtesy of a good plastic surgeon, Chelsea’s curves were given to her by the Maker himself.

  The memory of the time Dagan had accidentally walked in on Chelsea in the bathroom when she’d been wearing nothing but her bra and panties flitted through his brain. No, really, he hadn’t done it on purpose. But accident or not, the fact remained that the sight of her smooth, round ass and amazing tits encased in black satin was permanently affixed to the backs of his eyes. Hence all that arm-and-hand cardio he’d been doing in the shower for the past few months.

  A sound came from down the hall. It hit him like a wrecking ball, and rage surged inside him.

  On the one hand, he was grateful Chelsea was still inside the penthouse. On the other hand, he was going to kill whichever fuckhead had just made her cry out in pain.

  Chapter 4

  Well, this is about as much fun as a dadgummed thorny dildo, Chelsea thought, wincing when Steven Surry grabbed her jaw in a merciless grip and dug his fingers into the hollows of her cheeks.

  “Tell us who you work for, cunt!” he demanded for what seemed like the millionth time. He held up the thumb drive he had found after marching her into Morrison’s office and giving her a thorough pat-down. “Tell us what you’re trying to find!”

&nbs
p; At first, Morrison had sputtered and demanded that Surry release her, playing the good boss even though Chelsea was certain she’d seen him eagerly lick his lips while watching Surry shove his fingers into her every nook and cranny. But the minute Surry pulled the drive from her blazer—and especially after Surry had tried to search her phone and found it encrypted out the wazoo—Morrison’s face had changed. Now, it was beet red with barely suppressed fury, and the gleam in his eye reminded her that he was far more than a lewd old billionaire. He was…Spider.

  “Tell us!” Surry demanded again, giving her head a hard shake. Her brain banged around inside her skull, making her see stars. Since she was tied with a length of electrical cord to one of the chairs in front of Morrison’s desk, her hands duct-taped behind her back, there was little she could do to defend herself.

  Then again, she still had her smart mouth. “Screw you, buddy,” she snarled. Those three words were all she allowed herself before she clenched her teeth and sealed her lips shut.

  The violence that clouded Surry’s face and glinted in his hell-black eyes made her want to curl into a protective ball. He leaned down so that his nose was an inch from hers. His hot breath smelled of coffee and buttered croissants, and the thought of him actually eating struck her as weird. She had assumed he sustained himself by devouring the souls of Morrison’s enemies.

  “You will bloody well tell us what we want to know, Miss Duvall.” When he spoke all low and menacing in that thick English accent, she got the unsettling feeling that something dark moved in the shadows just out of sight. “Or I will jab this letter opener into your carotid.” He pulled back to wield the weapon he had taken from Morrison’s desktop. The sterling-silver letter opener glinted in the golden glow cast by the overhead chandelier.

  Releasing her face, Surry cocked his head. “So, what shall it be? The truth? Or the knife? The choice is yours.” There was an emptiness in his voice when he asked the questions. Like he didn’t really care what the answers would be. Like he was tired or bored or maybe…resigned?

  Oh, that doesn’t bode well.

  Of course, the truth was out of the question. She would never rat on the Black Knights. No telling what Morrison, a.k.a Spider, with all his power and connections, could do with that information. So that left…the knife.

  But there’s still so much I want to do!

  She had never learned to make her mother’s she-crab soup. She had never tried her hand at writing fiction like that of Tolkien or Rowling or Martin. She had never married the love of her life and given him two bouncing, chubby-cheeked babies.

  A cold finger of terror dragged up her spine, and for a second she considered spilling her guts and saving her hide. But then, from somewhere deep inside, a well of strength erupted, filling her with determination and the will to do what must be done.

  Her mind briefly touched on her mother, and a great sadness weighed down her heart. Grace Duvall would be devastated by the death of her only child. But Chelsea took comfort—cold comfort, but comfort all the same—in knowing that her life insurance policy would be enough to pay her mother’s debts. That was something. Something to hold on to.

  “Well?” Surry demanded. “What will it be?”

  Chelsea licked her lips. Fear was a living thing inside her, crawling through her chest like a centipede on prickly legs. She shoved it aside and sealed her own fate. “Do your worst, you sorry, low-life sonofagun!”

  Surry’s beard-stubbled chin jerked back as if he couldn’t believe the choice she’d made. Then his eyes narrowed, and grim determination transformed his face.

  Closing her eyes, Chelsea waited on the inevitable. That centipede was going crazy inside her, making her chest ache and raising the hair on her head. She braced herself for the deathblow as a million regrets, a million joys, a million memories flitted through her brain.

  Funny how many of those regrets and joys and memories feature Dagan.

  She held her breath, savoring it, knowing it was her last and—

  “Drop. The. Knife.”

  With a cry, she blinked open her eyes and craned her head around to see three figures dressed from head to toe in black. Each of them wielded a weapon as if it were an extension of himself.

  The Black Knights…

  Even had Dagan not spoken the three most beautiful words she’d ever heard in that smooth moonshine voice, she would have known the trio anywhere. There was no mistaking those broad shoulders or those defiant, cocksure stances.

  Her eyes homed in on Dagan. He was in the middle and slightly forward of the other two. It wasn’t his height or carriage that gave him away. It was his stillness. Ace and Christian seemed to vibrate with barely leashed power. But Dagan was a statue. Not a muscle quivered. Not a tendon or ligament cracked. Chelsea was reminded of a pair of tectonic plates under intense pressure. She knew what came next. The earth would rip open, and hell would spew forth.

  Surry must have felt the doom behind Dagan’s stillness, because his voice sounded wheezy when he demanded, “And who the fuck are you?”

  “Worry less about who we are,” Dagan snarled, “and more about what we’ll do if you don’t drop the knife.”

  Proving he had more balls than brains, Surry spun Chelsea’s chair around and palmed her forehead to wrench her head back. The sharp tip of the letter opener nicked at the skin pulsing over the large vein in her neck. She hadn’t had time to scream, and now she didn’t dare breathe.

  “Ring up the police, sir,” Surry said.

  From the corner of her eye, Chelsea saw Morrison/Spider make a move toward the desk.

  “Take one step in the direction of that phone, and you’ll be eating a bullet for breakfast.” There was no mistaking Dagan’s words or his tone. He meant what he said.

  Morrison must have come to the same realization. The old man stopped in his tracks.

  “Good man,” Dagan acknowledged. “Now, there’s one thing you both need to understand. We’re leaving here with Chelsea. That can be over your dead bodies or your live ones.” Even though his words were calm and his body as motionless as a mountain, rage burned inside him. It was there in his eyes, glowing red like the fires of Mordor. “So what will it be? The choice is yours.”

  It was the same option Surry had given her, spoken in the same words. How long had the three of them been outside listening?

  “You have no bloody idea who you’re fucking with,” Morrison snarled, his chest heaving with every furious breath. “I have—”

  That’s all he managed. In a flash, the statue, a.k.a. Dagan Zoelner, came to life. He moved faster than the human eye could follow, certainly faster than Chelsea could track with her head angled back in Surry’s grip. One second Dagan was staring at her and Surry, and the next he aimed at Morrison and pulled his trigger.

  The gunshot was oddly muffled and Morrison stumbled back, hitting his hip on the edge of the desk. Surry bellowed his outrage and released her head. Free from his brutal grip, she turned to Morrison and understood the strangeness of the weapon’s sound.

  It wasn’t a bullet that had exploded from the end of Dagan’s gun. It was a dart. She had just enough time to catch a glimpse of the fuzzy yellow end protruding from the center of Morrison’s chest before Dagan fired again. This time the dart whizzed over her head. Surry made an awful gurgling noise. When she pulled her chin back, she saw the projectile sticking from his neck.

  He reached for the dart, stumbling into her chair. His hand hit the back of her head, looking for leverage and forcing her chin into her chest as every vertebra in her neck threatened to crack under the pressure. She couldn’t see what happened next. But she heard it. Heard the boots that pounded against the tiles as the Black Knights raced into the room.

  Surry released her head when Christian tackled him. From the corner of her eye, she watched Ace catch Morrison right before the old man toppled face-first onto the floor
. And Dagan? Well, Dagan knelt in front of her.

  She gasped when his big, warm hands cupped her cheeks, gently lifting her head. Her neck ached, but it wasn’t broken. All her fingers and toes still worked when she gave them an experimental wiggle.

  “Chels… Christ. Are you okay?” His stormy eyes searched her face.

  She nodded. That’s all she could manage because a giant lump was centered in her throat. She had put on a brave face throughout the entire ordeal, but now that it looked like she was saved, all her shock and terror rose to the surface, crumbling her mask of courage.

  “Thank God.” He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close.

  It was the first time he had hugged her. The first time she had been in his arms. Oh, how she wanted to hold him tight in return. But with her hands still trapped behind her back, the only thing she could do was turn her face into his warm neck and breathe him in.

  She had always loved the way he smelled. A mixture of worn leather, dryer sheets, and shampoo. All clean and healthy and…male.

  “I was afraid m-maybe I didn’t press the button long enough to send out the Mayday,” she said in a rush, her lips moving against the rough fabric of his ski mask. “And th-then they found the thumb drive. But they were so quick to stop questioning me and…and…” She had to stop. “Thank you. Thank you for coming for me.”

  His wide palm cupped the back of her head, holding her close. Was it trembling? “Always, Chels. Never doubt it.”

  Oh great. Now the lump in her throat had grown to the size of a Carolina pine.

  She wanted the moment to last forever, to stay just like this, safe in his arms. But all too soon, he pulled back. “What were you thinking, telling them to do their worst? You were baiting them, egging them on. You stupid, stubborn, self-sacrificing fool.”

  And just like that, happiness and relief morphed into incredulity that slid quick as a whistle into anger. Seriously? He was going to stand there—er, squat there—and call her names?