Fatal Honor: Shadow Force International (6 page)

A muscle popped in his jaw. He kept his focus on the highway as the truck topped eighty.

Could this reunion be going any better? “I went to see my handler because I hadn’t checked in with him for six weeks.” She turned toward the window and stared at the all-night gas stations and restaurants dotting the landscape.
The best six weeks of my life
.

If only she could reach out and touch him, tell him how sorry she was.

Charlotte stared at his shadowed profile, the pulse at the base of her throat beating like the wings of a trapped bird. It took all her willpower not to touch his hand on the shifter, run her fingers across his tight jaw. He wouldn’t accept her touch any more than her apology, and she didn’t have time for this…whatever
this
was. “How about you answer one of my questions? Like, who are you so fired up about going to help?”

They passed a slower moving car. He unclenched his jaw. “A woman whose ex is threatening her.”

A woman. Charlotte’s heart tweaked a little. Of course he’d found someone new. He probably had dozens of women he spent time with.
Good for him
. It wasn’t like they could resume their past relationship, anyway.

But, God, the thought of him with someone else made her heart feel too small inside her chest. As if all the blood were drying up, her heart cracking.

She forced casualness into her voice. “You really think it’s a good idea to bring me to meet your girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?” He sent her a confused look. “She’s a client and he’s a lousy SOB who needs to be taught a lesson.”

Client, right. Rock Star Security—the front for Shadow Force International. She’d figured Miles wouldn’t go back to the SEAL teams, figured Emit Petit might have use for him. While SFI kept the identities and whereabouts of the employees strictly confidential, it hadn’t taken long for her to figure out Miles wasn’t in D.C. when she arrived in America. He was working out of the West Coast branch.

Without signaling, Miles took an off ramp and interrupted her thoughts. “How did you end up kidnapped by Bourean?”

She debated whether to answer. Decided it didn’t make a lot of difference. He wasn’t going to answer more of her questions and she needed him to understand the severity of what he was doing. “In recent years, Britain has been hit by a Romanian crime wave, including rapes and murders all led by Nico. MI6 sent me to infiltrate his organization. It took time, but I got in deep enough to start gathering intel on several of his criminal activities and overheard a disturbing conversation. He’d hooked up with a terrorist and formed a collaboration to export certain members of his clan to the UK in order to set up sleeper cells.”

They drove past a fancy, gated community, and took a left onto a long drive that rose to a house on a hill.

“Sleeper cells for what purpose?” Miles said, slowing the truck and scanning the dark expanse of yard.

All the lights were on in the two-story mansion. Outside lights revealed a Mercedes in the circular drive, parked at an odd angle, and a man standing on the steps with his hands raised into the air, shaking his fists and yelling.

“He was going into the terrorist business. I just needed to prove it.”

Miles cocked his chin at the man on the front steps. “This guy is trouble. If I don’t shut him down, he will eventually hurt the woman inside. He’s probably drunk and needs to know, right here tonight, that he can’t keep doing this. Help me out a minute, would ya?”

He was out of the truck and striding toward the man before Charlotte could ask how.

She checked over her shoulder, saw no one had followed them. She debated, then exited the truck.

“Ted.” Miles stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “I told you to stay away from her.”

The man whipped around and snarled. “And I told you to butt out. She’s my wife!”

Miles took the stairs two at a time, putting himself face-to-face with the guy. “Not anymore. She divorced your sorry ass for this very reason. You’re a violent drunk. Let her go. Get some help. Move on.”

Ted growled and took a roundhouse swing. Miles easily dodged it, grabbed the man’s arm and tossed him down the steps.

A couple of flips, arse over teakettle, and he landed at Charlotte’s feet, moaning.

He wasn’t all that big, but probably a good thirty pounds overweight. He lifted his head and looked up at her, his eyes bloodshot. The smell of beer wafted up from him. Something changed in his demeanor, and a second later, he reached out and snagged hold of her ankle.

She stomped on his wrist with her free foot. The man howled and let go. Miles, having followed the man down, grasped his flailing arm and hauled it behind his back. Then he forced Ted to his feet, rolling his eyes at the man’s string of curses.

Spittle formed on Ted’s lips and the alcohol fumes made Charlotte take another step back.

“The police are on their way to arrest you,” Miles told him. “This is your third violation of the restraining order. We can’t have this, Teddy, ol’ boy. Not on my watch.”

Ted spit at the ground. “Fucking cops won’t do anything to me.”

“No, but I will,” Charlotte said, moving closer.

Miles looked at her over Ted’s shoulder. “Yeah, my friend here doesn’t like men who abuse their wives. You know, if it was just me, I’d kill you and make your body disappear, but Charlotte here, she likes to make domestic abusers suffer.”

Ted stopped struggling.

Charlotte gave him her best psychotic smile and ramped up her British accent a notch. “Do I get to take him apart limb by limb? I so love all that blood.”

Miles spoke close to Ted’s ear. “She has a spot out in the desert, keeps you alive for days while she tortures you.”

“Fuck you,” Ted said, blustering again. “I don’t believe that.”

Charlotte licked her lips. “Want me to show you what I can do?” She ran a finger over the side of his face, eyeing him like he was a piece of meat. “I learned from the best, you know. Serbian war criminals. Russian mobsters. Romanian Gypsies. They all know how to inflict tremendous pain without killing you.”

“Gypsies?” Ted reared back from her finger. “Who the hell are you?”

Funny that the term Gypsy carried more fear for him than war criminals and mobsters.

She could work with that. She tapped the end of his nose. “We’re going to have lots of fun, you and I. And while you’re dying, I’ll curse your bones so your ghost walks the desert from now until eternity.”

She began chanting a Gypsy song her mother had taught her.

The man reared back again but went nowhere since Miles was holding him. “You’re sick.” He tried to twist away from Miles’ grip. “Let me go. I want out of here.”

Lights from an approaching car spotlighted them. Charlotte startled and turned. A black and white cruiser. Police.

A violent relief flooded her and she backed away, out of the spotlight. As Miles handed Ted over to them, she slipped quietly into the truck, keeping her face in shadows.

A woman erupted from the house, flying down the stairs and hugging Miles as the cops shoved a handcuffed Ted into the backseat of the cruiser. He was yelling and cursing and Charlotte could hear him through the windows.

She caught his eye. He stopped mid-curse and stared at her, almost daring her.

She gave him a little wave and licked her lips. Then she gave him what she hoped was a full-on serial killer smile.

He drew away, sliding across to the other side of the seat.

Miles finally detached himself from Yolanda and guided her to an officer who began taking her statement. Miles climbed into the truck a moment later and put it in gear.

“She seems quite happy,” Charlotte said.

“Thanks for your help.” They drove down the long driveway and stopped at the gates. “He’ll think twice about threatening her again. Meantime, I suggested she start keeping these gates closed and locked. I taught her self-defense while I was working for her, but she needs to quit making it easy for him to get to her.”

Miles used a Bluetooth to call his boss and report in as they hit the highway headed back toward the city. Once the two men had disconnected, he glanced at her. “You did good back there. I appreciate it.”

“Sure,” she said, keeping her gaze on the passing night scenery. While this whole side trip was keeping her from her mission, she’d told the guy the truth. She’d learned torture from the best.

They drove for a few minutes in silence. She could feel Miles’ questions hovering in the air around them. His citrusy scent tickled her nose.

They were a few blocks from her motel when he finally spoke. “So why all the sneaking around, Charlotte? Why didn’t you come straight to me and ask for the necklace back?”

“It was safer to stay out of your life. To get in, get the necklace, and disappear again. No one could track me to your doorstep.”

“Seems more like you were chickenshit to say hello.”

That too. “I was protecting you.”

“Being chickenshit doesn’t seem like you. Not the woman I remember. You weren’t scared of anything back in those mountains.”

He was wrong, but she never let anyone see the underlying fear she lived with. She’d been brought up by a military father who expected her to be fearless, courageous, to value honor and loyalty. And then he’d betrayed her.

That was all in the past.
No dwelling
, she reminded herself. “We’re all scared of something. I just don’t let my fears get in the way of what I want.”

“Which makes you a good spy, I imagine.”

A siren sounded behind them. “I’m not a double agent, like they say. I love my country. I would never betray her.”

Red lights flashed through the rear window. The siren blared louder, a long mournful sound that made the hair on Charlotte’s forearms stand up.

Miles slowed and pulled to the side. Charlotte checked over her shoulder, fearing the police were chasing them.

But it wasn’t the police. It was a large red fire truck that whooshed by them, another one on its heels.

Once they were gone, Miles pulled back onto the road. “How did you end up on that mountainside and find me?”

No point in playing dumb. “I had followed Nico. He was meeting a man I believed to be the terrorist he was going into partnership with. I was trying to get the man’s identity and record any interaction they had. They were testing new weaponry Nico had secured from the black market through me. My handler had set it up. Weapons so advanced and new, the U.S. and Britain hadn’t even given them to their soldiers yet.”

“What happened?”

“I hooked Nico up with the weapons as instructed by my handler. It was part of my cover in a sting to set up Nico and the terrorist. I was inside Nico’s organization, but just barely. I had to get him to trust me, believe I could help him, in order for him to bring me deeper into the clan and find out who the terrorist was he was working with.”

“Dr. Alexander, a nuclear physicist, died because of your sting. My men died because of it.”

She fisted her hands. The frustration that ate at her night and day burned in her stomach. “No one was supposed to die. My instructions were to do whatever it took to hook Nico up with the terrorist. There wasn’t supposed to be a plane in the area. No plane crash, no SEAL team sent to rescue anyone.”

They made a right turn, swung a corner. “So it was simple coincidence that the plane, and then our helo, was used as target practice?”

Charlotte sat up straighter as a line of gray smoke intersected the distant night sky. Memories of the plane crash, a similar trail of smoke rising into frigid night air, assaulted her. Her throat tightened.

“Charlotte?” Miles stopped at a red light, glanced at her, then followed her line of sight. “What is that?”

“How far are we from my motel?” She estimated less than a mile. “Tell me that smoke isn’t coming from there.”

More sirens split the air, another fire truck and a police vehicle racing through the intersection. Miles wheeled the vehicle through the red light and accelerated.

A minute later, they navigated past the gathered crowds, parking as close as they could get. Jumping out of the truck, she didn’t wait for Miles to catch up with her before she ran toward the scene.

The entire east end of the motel where her room had been was ablaze. Firefighters blasted it with water from long hoses. At the opposite end of the L-shaped building, a body, covered by a white sheet, was being rolled out to an ambulance.

Miles, suddenly by her side, touched her arm. “Stay here. I’ll find out what happened.”

But Charlotte already knew. Nicolae.

Putting up the hood on her sweatshirt, she faded backward into the crowd, searching for his goons, anyone who seemed more interested in watching the people rather than the fire.

Miles spoke to a police officer, showing him an ID. Charlotte watched as the cop replied, motioning at the flames, the front desk. Miles glanced back to the spot where he’d left her. His face went hard—harder than before—and he nodded at the officer before he began fighting his way through the crowd toward her.

She should run, disappear again. He was in too much danger if she stayed.