Hot as Hell (14 page)

The waitress inclined her head and began tidying up the table, working her way toward MacLean.

“Are you okay?” Dawn turned away from her stilted conversation with Benrabi and looked at

Conn. “Just fine.” Conn arranged his chips into even stacks. “Ready to take your money, milady.”

“Will never happen.” Dawn looked at the next player who turned out to be MacLean. “Ready,

sir?” MacLean nodded and then swallowed the rest of his drink and shoved the glass to the side. The

waitress collected the empty glass and the cocktail napkin he’d blotted his mouth on; she was careful

to pick up the items so as not to contaminate his DNA. She took drink orders and hurried away.

Sam smiled. Yeah, they had the bastard.

“Your bet, Lady Wilson?” the croupier asked.

Dawn looked at her chips. “I’ll bet it all.”

“Senor Lazaro, do you wish to go bank?” the croupier asked MacLean.

“How much is the Bank worth at the moment?” MacLean responded.

The croupier assessed Dawn’s chips. “One million U.S. dollars.”

MacLean looked at his tally sheet on which a player kept track of the wins and losses. He smiled

and leaned back in his chair. “I’ll go bank.”

The rest of the players, now effectively blocked from betting, buzzed with excitement.

At Dawn’s bet, Ren had come over and looked over Sam’s shoulder. “Is she fucking nuts?”

“She’s always like that,” Lloyd said from behind them. Theo’s men stood on each side of him,

boxing him in. “Bloody crazy cunt.”

Sam growled. “Can I kill him, Ren? I don’t work for you—”

“Yet,” Ren said.

“—so it won’t reflect on SSI at all. The CIA can bury him deep,” Sam finished.

“You blokes are barmy,” sputtered Lloyd, his expression a mixture of anger and incredulity.

“And you tried to kill Dawn.” Sam turned and glared at Lloyd, who didn’t have the sense to

know he should be worried about his immediate future. “You’re fucking lucky to be fucking breathing.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill her,” Lloyd yelled. “Just scare her. She hates snakes.”

Sam surged to his feet and advanced upon Lloyd. The security men stepped away as Sam

punched the man who’d threatened his woman.

Lloyd stayed on the ground and rubbed his jaw. “Are you bleeding nuts? It was just a little

snake. She’d have screamed and had a right good scare, that’s all.”

Sam stood over him and yelled, “It was poisonous, you fucker. She could’ve been killed. You’re

fucking lucky we figured out something was wrong.”

The look of surprise on the asshole’s face proved the moronic peckerhead hadn’t known the

snake was dangerous. Then Lloyd paled as he probably realized he was lucky not to have been bitten,

either. “Jesus H. Christ, what a dumb ass. Pick him up and get him out of here,” Ren instructed Theo’s

men. “The intelligence officer from the Dutch marine base will hold him until the local authorities

decide whether they want to charge him locally with attempted murder or turn him over to the United

States for attempted murder of an intelligence contractor and interference with a mission of national

security.”

“National security?” Lloyd blustered as he tried to shrug off the guards’ hands. “What bloody

national security? I thought this was all about catching Oraio and he’s a bloody drug trafficker.”

“Nope, this is about Oraio being Syd MacLean, U.S. traitor and trafficker of arms, drugs, humans,

and intelligence secrets,” Ren said.

“Oh, bloody hell. I’m fucked.” Lloyd turned a sickly green and would’ve collapsed if the men

hadn’t been holding him by the elbows.

“Yeah, and be glad you are,” Sam added. “Or you’d have to deal with me. Now, shut the fuck

up. Dawn’s dealing.”

The drama unfolding in the casino now held everyone in the security center in thrall as they

focused on the high stakes card game. It was like a train wreck—no one could look away.

“Deal, please, Lady Wilson,” the croupier directed.

Dawn dealt one card to herself, then one to MacLean, both face down. Then dealt another to

her and to MacLean, also face down. They looked at their cards.

Dawn flipped hers over. “Natural nine.”

The men at the table and everyone who watched the play from the sidelines seemed to inhale

at the same time. It was as if they’d all been frozen in place.

“Senor Lazaro, do you wish another card?” the croupier asked. If he had a natural nine he

would’ve turned it over by now.

Grim-faced, he nodded. Dawn dealt another card face down. MacLean looked at it and his face

grew dark. He turned his cards up. He had a total of six.

The men at the table and the people watching cheered and shouted.

“The Bank wins,” the croupier intoned.

Sam laughed. “Fuck me. My ballsy little cat did it. She beat the bastard.”

Ren blew out a breath and muttered, “Thank fuck. I didn’t know how I was going to explain a

gambling loss to the DIA.”

“Fuck. The bleeding bitch has all the luck. Always has.” Lloyd sounded like a whiny teenager,

blaming everyone but himself for the mess he was in. “And when she doesn’t rely on luck, she uses her

father’s position to screw people over. She got me fired.”

Sam turned toward the security guards. “Why isn’t he gone yet?”

The men saluted and dragged Lloyd away.

“Dawn, play another hand or two to pacify the rest of the table and then surrender the Bank,”

Ren ordered.

Dawn tapped the table once in acknowledgment.

Sam looked at Ren. “Do we know yet if we got enough of a sample on MacLean?”

Ren checked his smart phone. “The forensic tech the DIA sent down said there was enough

saliva on the glass to do the DNA test. The waitress who’s a tech for the Aruban police was smart to

bag the napkin since they also managed to get skin cells and sweat. So we can run three tests—and

if they match MacLean’s DNA on file, the Dutch will extradite him immediately to the United States.”

“Now, all we have to do is catch him and Benrabi in the act of slave trafficking, so we can hold

MacLean long enough to get the DNA results back,” Sam said.

A push notification sounded loudly in the room and Ren checked his phone once again then

grinned. “Good news. We can take immediate custody of MacLean. My creative wife recorded

MacLean’s voice during the card game and then hit up some of her NSA buddies and obtained some

recordings of MacLean when he was at the DIA. She just finished running a match against the audio

from the card game. It’s an exact match.”

“Hoo-rah,” Sam said.

Ren tapped a message on his phone and hit send. “I just gave the Dutch military the go-ahead

to take control of Benrabi and MacLean’s yachts and the container ship as part of our pursuit of a

U.S. traitor and his associates. They’ll also take over MacLean’s estate,” Ren said. “Discovery of the

kidnapped girls on the ship can only add nails to both asshats’ coffins.”

“When do we take MacLean and Benrabi into custody?” Sam’s gaze never left Dawn as she

dazzled her fellow players and continued to win.

“After they leave the casino,” Ren said. “We don’t want any innocents hurt in the takedown.

Damn, Dawn’s either the luckiest card player in the world or the croupier stacked the shoe somehow.”

“Bet you’re glad MacLean will finally be contained,” said Sam.

“The fucking bastard tried to kill Keely and others in the SSI family.” Ren smiled, an ugly smile.

“Worst fucking mistake he ever made.”

Sam was glad he and Ren were on the same side. The man was scary in his retribution, and not

much scared Sam.

Chapter 12

Dawn smiled brightly as the croupier pulled in MacLean’s bet and pushed the chips toward her

position. “Well, that was lucky. What’s say we see how long my winning streak will last?”

“Conn. Dawn…” Ren’s deep voice came over her ear bud. “We have what we need. Wrap this

up and get the fuck out of there. We’ll be taking MacLean and Benrabi into custody right after they

leave the hotel.”

Thank God. A couple more hands was about all she could handle. Being this close to Benrabi

made her skin crawl more than she’d imagined.

A bright smile on her face, she continued stacking her winnings while wondering what the fuck

was going on. The original plan had been to catch MacLean and Benrabi in the act of transferring the

girls from the container ship to Benrabi’s yacht. Whatever had changed had not altered her or Conn’s

next moves.

Initiating their exit plan, Conn moved closer to her. He placed an arm along the back of her

chair and played with her hair. “Have dinner with me?”

Dawn turned toward him and gave him a dazzling smile. “Yes, thank you. Let me play a few

more hands?”

“Sure. Give ‘em hell, babe.” His wink and the smile he gave her would probably have melted the

knickers off a more susceptible female.

But she was immune. Her knickers and the removal thereof were solely in the keeping of Sam.

Dawn finished stacking her chips and consulted her tally sheet. “My calculations have me

winning at slightly over sixty-two percent. Odds are that won’t last. Anyone feeling lucky?”

Henri, who’d flirted with her outrageously since she’d sat down, saluted her with his brandy.

“Deal, milady. You have to lose now. The … how do they say it in America? … the elephant is no longer

in the room.”

Conn laughed. “Close enough. Deal, babe. I missed several hands.” He looked at his watch.

“Maybe I can recoup some of my losses before our dinner reservation at an exclusive little restaurant

on the beach I discovered.”

“That sure of me, Conner?” She punched him lightly on the arm. “You made the reservation

even before asking me. What if I’d said no?”

“I’d have kept asking until you said yes.” Conn captured her hand and kissed the tips of her

fingers. “I’m very persuasive when I see something I want.”

Conn was definitely laying the lover act on thick. And Benrabi was buying it if his stiff body

language was any indicator. The Yemeni uttered several curses during a lengthy diatribe. While her

Arabic—and the Yemeni dialect in question—were rusty, roughly translated, he’d likened Conn to

camel dung, called her a filthy whore, and ended his tirade by calling down the curses of Allah on the

Earl of Oxenham for his perfidy in keeping her from the sheikh.

MacLean smirked at his partner-in-crime’s harangue, but jerked when her father’s title was

mentioned. He turned a piercing look on Dawn. For several seconds, his expression was almost

analytical as if he were examining and rejecting hypotheses. Then his lips quirked in a crooked half

smile that gave her a really bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Her only conclusion? The arsehole knew her father and knew he was in British intelligence.

MacLean leaned over and whispered something in Benrabi’s ear which caused the sheikh to

nod. Then the bleeding traitor texted someone.

Now, that didn’t bode well for Conn or her—or SSI’s mission.

“Don’t worry about them, sweetheart,” Sam’s voice sounded a bit strained. He’d obviously

picked up on the odd MacLean-Benrabi interchange. “Just stick close to Conn. We’ll have eyes on them

and you at all times.”

But that wouldn’t tell them to whom MacLean had sent a message or what it had contained.

She had a sinking feeling they’d find the answer to both those concerns sooner or later.

She tapped a finger on the table, acknowledging Sam’s communication. But she wouldn’t relax

her guard until Benrabi and MacLean were locked away.

“Bets, please,” the croupier called.

Lost in thought, Dawn startled.

Conn patted her hand as he leaned in to whisper, “You okay?”

She nodded. “Sorry, just calculating how much more I need to win to buy the little island off the

coast of the Bahamas that I’m interested in.”

Several of the players laughed. The Ukrainian player said, “I’ll buy you an island. Ditch the

American and fly away with me.”

“Sorry, but I’ve already promised to dine with Conner.” She sent the other man a smoldering

gaze. “Ask me again tomorrow evening, I might have changed my mind about the Yank by then.”

“I’ll look for you.” The Ukrainian raised his glass of vodka and saluted her.

Dawn turned to the croupier. “Let’s start out easy. Give the gents a chance to catch up. Banker

bets ten thousand.”

The next player didn’t have the funds to go bank so he matched her bet. The punters kicked

in ten thousand a piece. Even MacLean—whose unnerving attention had kept returning to her since

Benrabi mentioned her father—kicked in a bet.

The traitor’s smile had turned decidedly cruel. But Benrabi’s expression was even scarier.

Something told her if the sheikh got his hands on her, she’d fare no better than the young girls he

planned to pimp to his radical allies. Rape would be the least of the horrors she’d face.

Keeping her face pleasantly bland, Dawn took a deep breath and dealt the cards. She won

again. And then again on the next deal.

“Time to wind this up, sweetheart.” Sam’s voice over the com system was more than welcome.

While most of her fellow players were exclaiming at her marvelous run of luck and that it had

to end soon, MacLean and Benrabi were silent. They had about them the air of patient predators—and

she was positive they weren’t planning to beat her at cards.

“One more hand, gentlemen,” she aimed a bright smile at Conn, “then my new American friend

is taking me to dinner.”