Cutting Loose Page 9

  Grit. She had it in spades.

  “I am doing my best to keep you alive,” he said, his voice deliberately harsh, his grip on her unrelenting, his face just inches from hers. “And my best is damn good, but you need to do exactly what I tell you to do, every single time I tell you.”

  Her gaze was narrowed on him, her body stiff, resisting—and he approved. He could work with tough. She was scared. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in the shortness of her breath, but she was going to fight. Good. Great. Just not with him.

  “You can’t stay here, in this town,” he said, “not where you can be found, so think about what you want. If it’s back to the Cross Double R in Montana, fine. I can make sure you get there. If it’s somewhere else where you’ll be safe, fine. I’ll get you there. But you are not running loose anywhere in goddamn New Mexico. Not today.” With that, he pulled her cuffed hand down low enough for him to snap the other cuff onto the seat post, the bar of metal holding the passenger seat to the floor of the chassis, and he locked her to the car.

  She wasn’t going anywhere, and she wasn’t happy. It was written all over her face.

  Bastard.

  Yeah, he could read her mind, read her anger and the uncertainty in her eyes.

  “H-how do you know about the Cross?” she asked, her voice a little shaky, her body still stiff with tension where he held her—so close, close enough to feel her breathe.

  God, she was beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous even barely out of bed, her silky dark hair falling out of her braid and curling up over her ears, sliding down over her shoulders, her eyes with a slight exotic slant, so clear, such a pure, shattered blue and looking so intently into his, demanding an answer.

  Under different circumstances, that could work for him. Under other circumstances, having her so close could work really, really well for him—very hot, very sweet.

  Satiny skin promising a soft touch.

  Artfully sculpted lips, carved in lush, full curves promising a soft kiss.

  Three weeks, that’s how long it had been since he’d dropped her off in Albuquerque, and he’d thought about her every goddamn day since. Fuck.

  “I know everything about you, Lily.” He told her the truth, then released her.

  Opening the door, he got the hell out of the Shelby. He had a job to do, and only minutes to get it done.

  Bullshit, Lily thought, watching him disappear around the corner of the motel. There was no damn way Alejandro Campos knew everything about her.

  And if he didn’t come back, what in the world was going to happen to her?

  She brought her free hand up and held onto her other arm. She was shivering, even with the temperature warming with the sunrise.

  He didn’t know how truly frightened she was of him. Frightened beyond the violence of the morning, frightened beyond the handcuffs. He was a personal threat, a promise of annihilation. She didn’t understand it, not at all. But she’d felt it when he’d held her so close, felt it running through her, deep in her core. He could destroy her. Or create her, and she wouldn’t accept anyone having that kind of effect on her, that kind of power over her. She couldn’t accept it.

  Keep her safe? Yes, he could do that, too, if he so chose, but she wasn’t at all sure that would be his choice, or if he’d live long enough to get the job done. The man in the hotel had been out to kill them both this morning.

  Dammit. Goddammit. She pulled on the handcuff, and wondered, truly, if she had the strength to pull his damn car apart.

  And what was with that damn bracelet? For the love of God, people were dying for it.

  She started to shake again, almost uncontrollably. She’d killed a man, killed him dead in her house. She wouldn’t change it, not for a moment. He’d been aiming straight at her, or Campos. She would never know for sure who had been in his sights, but it didn’t matter. Given where she and Campos had been standing, the guy with the ponytail could easily have gotten them both with one bullet. A hollow-point bullet might not have had enough penetration, but one of her flat-point handloads would have cut through both of them like a hot knife through butter. Her dad made them for her, for his baby girl, living all alone in Albuquerque—and he’d made them for the exact situation she’d found herself in this morning.

  Oh, God. Oh, God.

  She brought her hand up over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. She’d done the right thing. The only thing. But who was the dead man? And this man at the motel—who was he? And were there other men out there, too? Men who wanted the bracelet?

  Damn Campos—how dare he handcuff her again. It was the last time. She swore it.

  Oh, God. She’d fallen asleep dreaming about him last night, wondering if she would ever see him again, longing for him. All because of what she’d felt three weeks ago in El Salvador. Some connection that shouldn’t exist—but did.

  He didn’t know everything about her. He didn’t know how easily, or how deeply, she got lost in his eyes. She’d never seen farther in anybody’s eyes than she saw in his—and how could that be?

  Goddamn him. If she wasn’t safe in Albuquerque, why had he left her so helpless? Handcuffed. Unarmed. Exposed.

  Zach—that’s the name the girl on the PC had called him. It was his real name. She knew it. Not Alejandro Campos. The girl had known exactly who he was—damn him.

  Denver—the girl had said that, too. Denver, Steele Street, SDF. Sister Julia had been going to Denver with her sister, Honey York, and the man who had been with Honey, Smith Rydell. Which all meant what?

  Lily didn’t have a clue. But Rydell was a good guy, right? Sister Julia was certainly no criminal, and Honoria York was practically famous.

  And they all knew Campos. They’d all been at his villa. Sister Julia actually liked the man.

  The sound of sirens in the distance sent a wash of fear down her spine. She’d killed a man and fled the scene. Self-defense aside, her actions were suspect, maybe even criminal.

  She put her hand over her heart, just to feel the solid beat of it—and she breathed, watching the corner of the motel where he’d disappeared, watching and waiting.

  He had to come back.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Saturday, 6:45 A.M.—Denver, Colorado

  She ruled.

  Cherie swirled her triple-shot latte around in her grande-sized commuter coffee mug before popping the top and taking another sip. Stretching her legs out, she rested her heels on the open windowsill of her personal double-hung window and relaxed back in her chair to enjoy the view.

  Dylan had wanted fifteen minutes, and she’d given him exactly that: Charlotte’s Bazo up and running, all signals go, in record time. Sometimes she amazed even herself—and now Dylan owed her. All she had to do was figure out what she wanted.

  She could think of one thing right off the bat. Hell, she could think of two or three.

  Swiveling a bit to her left, she glanced behind her into the rest of the office. The boss was back in his private lair with the door closed, and he was the only one with any rules.

  So…so, maybe it was time for another cigarette.

  She always thought better with a careful mix of caffeine and nicotine running through her, though truth be told, she already had a pretty good idea of what she was going to ask from Dylan.

  She reached across her desk for her backpack and dragged it into her lap, then swiveled back to look out the window. One cigarette—what could it harm?

  Your lungs, girl. Besides that, though, and she was quitting next week. She had it all mapped out on her calendar. Currently she was in the buildup stage, building up to the BQ, the Big Quit, the one that lasted for all time. At twenty-six, she was finally ready.

  Damn. Twenty-six. When had that happened?

  After lighting up, she exhaled a series of three perfect smoke rings and watched them dissolve against the window and a backdrop of the Front Range being revealed by the rising sun, slowly, steadily, inevitably, and brightly—very brightly.

  And that w
as not a good thing.

  She dug back in her pack for a pair of sunglasses, found the biggest ones she owned, and slipped them on her face. That was better, she thought. Sunlight was no friend to a girl who’d spent the night sipping champagne and hadn’t been to bed.

  Readjusting her feet on the windowsill, she settled back into her chair and went back to thinking about Dylan owing her and what she was going to get out of him, one way or the other.

  A smile slowly curved her lips.

  Inside job—geez, just the thought gave her chills. Dylan and one other unnamed person on the team knew something about 738 Steele Street she didn’t. It wasn’t Skeeter or Kid. The three of them were the Bitch Musketeers. She’d know if either of them had been holding anything back during their security reviews.

  Her best guess would be Christian Hawkins.

  Sure. It had to be Superman. But why would he take Charlotte? There were a hundred superfine cars in the garages, so why Charlotte the Harlot, instead of Charlene, the other Shelby Cobra Mustang? What set Charlotte apart from all the other iron in Steele Street?

  She was one of the original Steele Street rides. Charlene had been bought about five years ago, but Charlotte had been with the boys since they’d been teenagers. Somehow that was the key, and Cherie was just about to slip that piece of the puzzle into place when her cell phone rang and startled her out of her whole damn train of thought. Surprised that anyone was calling her so early, that anyone she knew outside of the SDF office was even up at this ungodly hour, she gave the phone an annoyed glance.

  Which lasted all of two seconds, just long enough to read the screen.

  Sliding the phone open, she brought it to her ear. “Hey, Cooper.”

  “Congratulations, boss. Gallen Fund has contracted with Hacker International to design the IT system for their San Francisco office.”

  “You closed the deal?”

  “Signed, sealed, and delivered last night,” he said. Danny Cooper was her only employee, and between the two of them, Hacker International was grossing close to seven figures this year, enough that they were moving into new luxury quarters next week. For the last few months, they’d been housed at Steele Street’s annex, the Commerce City Garage. The Gallen Fund deal wasn’t a big one, but the venture-capital company was very high profile in Third World health clinics, and Cherie had wanted the deal.

  “Super job, Danny.” She was grinning a mile wide.

  “Thanks. Sorry to call so early, but I was able to get a standby flight. I wanted you to know I’ll be back in Denver by noon.”

  “Then we’ll celebrate tonight. Bring your sweetie and all the Mini-Coopers, and we’ll do something at the house.” The house was Cherie’s LoDo loft, about a stone’s throw from Steele Street.

  “No date, huh?”

  Jerk.

  “That’s twenty Saturday nights in a row that you’ve been trying to hang out with my kids, and not a one of them over six years old. That’s sad, Hacker, really sad.”

  “Jerk.” She didn’t keep it to herself this time.

  “I can’t imagine what that says about your sex life, all these dateless Saturday nights.”

  “And I can’t imagine what all those Mini-Coopers are doing to your sex life.” Danny had three kids.

  “Lisa’s pregnant again.”

  “Oh, for the love of God, Danny.” She laughed. “Give the woman a break.”

  “What I’m going to give her is a foot massage, and if you don’t need me today, I’ll see you Monday morning in Commerce City and not a moment before.”

  “Monday.”

  “Ciao, boss.”

  “Ciao.” She hung up and looked around for her soda can. The ash on her cigarette had gotten precariously long.

  Geez. Where had the darn thing gone? And what did it take, really, to end up barefoot and pregnant, deliriously happy with three screaming-cute kids and some equally screaming-cute guy to massage your feet?

  She was smart, summa cum laude, high school valedictorian, top kid in her kindergarten, could read when she was three, but she wasn’t smart enough to figure out the whole “happily ever after” thing.

  Well, actually, one time, a guy told her she was too smart. Actually, she’d been told that twice, maybe three…okay, maybe four times.

  Maybe five.

  So maybe the brainiac motif was working against her. She should still be smart enough to figure out a way around it, without having to resort to a lobotomy.

  Lobotomies for love—she’d floated that by a guy once. He hadn’t thought it was very funny, and as she recalled, she had not heard from him again.

  She looked on the other side of a few stacks of books and her half-dead plant, and then she remembered.

  Oh, hell.

  Very carefully, she slid off the end of her chair and got to her knees, then even more carefully, stretched out, reaching under the desk toward the soda can. She barely got her cigarette over the top of it before the ash fell—and landed perfectly inside.

  Another grin curved her mouth.

  It was official.

  She ruled.

  Gabriel Shore stepped out of the elevator with his older sister and took a moment to catalogue the scene before him. General Grant had briefed him extensively on what to expect at Steele Street: the cutting-edge professionalism of the SDF team, the top-notch skill levels of the operators, the higher-than-high-tech equipment—and what he saw were women. Everywhere. Just women. An office full of them.

  The exceptionally hot blonde in combat boots and a bustier had to be Skeeter Bang-Hart, Dylan Hart’s wife, and one of SDF’s two women operators. The other was his sister, such as she was, Red Dog. He usually called her Gillian, like he always had, whether she remembered him as a kid or not—and the answer to that was not. But in this environment, she truly was the world-renowned sniper Red Dog, a very hard act to follow.

  The small blonde on the couch with the pixie face was Honoria York, not an operator but a journalist for The Washington Post, and a celebrity of sorts in high-society circles. Grant had told him she might be here, but Gabriel hadn’t expected her to be in the office. As politely as possible, he would suggest to Dylan Hart that she be removed from the immediate premises, at least while he was here. There could be absolutely no leaks on the information he’d brought with him from Washington.

  And that left just one other woman, a mystery girl stretched out under her desk in a white dress that billowed out above her knees and, in her current position, barely covered her ass. A faint cloud of smoke hovered over her section of the office, with more coming out from under the desk. She was smoking under there—holy cripes—wearing what looked like a black leather motorcycle jacket and what were definitely really high heels, gold and shiny, with white pom-pom things stuck on them.

  She might have to be removed as well. He’d make the call after he found out who she was and checked with Grant. His mission was top priority at his end of the Marsh Annex in Washington, D.C., where General Richard “Buck” Grant also had his office. Gabriel had been tracking an international businessman for his employer, the Commerce Department Security Division, CDSD, and two weeks ago he’d run across Grant’s investigation of the same man, Sir Arthur Kendryk, Lord Weymouth.

  Kendryk was showing up on a lot of people’s radar lately, and normally, coming across another department’s investigation would not have required Gabriel’s intervention, let alone a cross-country trip, but in among the file requests made by Dylan Hart through General Grant’s office had been the details of a large Uzbekistan drug deal, a ton of Afghan opium going from a man named Gul Rashid in Uzbekistan, to a buyer in Marseilles, with Tony Royce brokering the deal.

  The name had hit him like a physical blow. Tony Royce was the man who had tortured his sister, and he was in a file Hart had put together on Kendryk. The whole thing had made his gut churn, and three days ago, his worst fears had been confirmed.

  The connection between Rashid and Kendryk had been vague and heavy on
conjecture, like so many of the possible connections Gabriel had followed himself—up until Hart had tracked the deal backward from Marseilles to Weymouth and found the name Spencer Bayonne. For Hart, the trail had gone cold there, but for Gabriel, Bayonne was the key. He could directly connect Bayonne to half a dozen arms deals in western Africa, and now he could directly connect Bayonne to Kendryk.

  That had been his glory moment, a solid success after a year’s worth of work. Bayonne was the linchpin, the key to connecting Kendryk’s legitimate international empire to the darker world of multimillion-dollar gunrunning, drug trafficking, and the illegal sales of highly complex, dual-use technology, but Gabriel had come to Denver because of another name he’d found in Hart’s files—Gillian’s. Buried deep, but there, a shadow player, a ghost in Uzbekistan, and through her interference what had begun as Tony Royce’s deal had gone to Bayonne instead. Gabriel was betting it had also gone to Kendryk.

  It was his fault. All of it. What had been done to her. What had happened to her since. And especially what she’d become.

  He glanced at her, standing next to him, and felt a familiar tightness in his chest. She was so sleek and hard, and so wired for action. Her levels of alertness were almost eerie. All her switches were on, lit up, topped off. She lived at a heightened sense of readiness, and was always armed to the teeth—a .45 in her shoulder holster, two knives he could see, and whatever else he couldn’t see. In the closed world of elite warriors, she had a reputation that crossed all borders, not only for the savage elegance of her skills, but also of her face, and of her heart. She took her orders from Dylan Hart and executed them with clean, efficient precision. She’d been tapped to guard heads of state, oil-rich sheiks, and fact-finding U.S. senators. Over the course of the last two years, she’d fulfilled dozens of missions in all corners of the globe, and he’d come to Denver for only one reason: to protect her.

  Him.

  The little brother.

  “Gillian,” he said, glancing through the office one more time, in case he’d missed the man whose name General Grant had given him. “I need to speak with Dylan Hart.”