Sapphire (2 page)

If he hadn’t seen the flash of steel in her hand Jase wouldn’t have believed what happened next. He whistled and glanced over at Ian throwing his boss a disbelieving look.

His comrade merely shook his head and muttered, “Yes, she’s really something, isn’t she, Jase?”

At that moment, with a warrior cry, Sapphire struggled up from under the frothing giant and twisted free. Ignoring his outraged bellow, she raised her arm revealing the ten-inch military grade blade in her hand and with a slashing movement drug it across his throat. The gurgling sound of blood and air escaping from the gaping hole in her attacker’s neck punctuated her victory.

Rising unsteadily to her feet, Sapphire glowered at the dying man. She shook her head in obvious disdain, then leaned down and retrieved her knife. After wiping the bloody weapon on her victim’s pants, she casually tucked it in her boot sheathe. Coolly striding over to the desk, she took the flash drive from the laptop and slid it into her jacket pocket. Glancing up at the camera, she tossed her head and winked, a slight smile gracing her lovely face. Without a backward glance at the mayhem in her wake, she walked toward the exit. As she strolled out into the hallway, she swayed her curvy bottom from side to side in a seemingly unconscious gesture.

Jase muttered, correcting himself in mock disgust.

“Unconscious, hell! That audaciously sexy salute was anything but unconscious!”

Chapter 2

A
fter the door closed and the scene on the monitor turned to snow, Jase didn’t try to hide his astonishment. Shaking his head, he whirled to face Riley Davis and Ian Ross, piercing the distinguished man with a hard glare.

“Christ, man. You can’t be serious. That wisp of a woman, who took down a fucking gorilla and slashed to death another even more dangerous one, didn’t so much as look back?”

Ian shrugged and sighed. “Yeah, that’s what
we
thought.”

Jase whistled as he gazed up at the screen shot of the killer woman he’d just watched take down two hardened Cartel members without breathing hard. She was standing outside of Riley’s upscale townhouse seemingly oblivious to the heads turning to ogle her. It wasn’t difficult to see why the passers-by were smitten. She was, in a word, a show-stopper. Seeing her dressed in tight low rider jeans, sexy ankle boots and a halter top that strained across her ample breasts, Jase shook his head in wonderment. In her black leather biker garb, replete with a sequestered mini-armory of weapons, the woman had looked as hard and formidable as she’d proven herself to be.

But the willowy blonde now on the screen, tipping a bottle of water up to her full sensuous lips looked more like a runway model than a trained killer. On the video, all he had seen of her hair was a tightly woven braid tucked under the collar of her leather jacket. What the braid masked was a cascade of sun-streaked hair that flowed over her shoulders and down her back. Myriad shades of blond shone in the sunlight. The thick waves cried out for a man’s eager hands to tangle in the mass of silken gold. Jase’s fingers itched at the thought. Equally surprising were her eyes. The only way Jase could explain that he’d barely noticed them before was that he’d been sure that she would never make it out of the room alive. Now, seeing her gazing into the crowd along the street, he marveled at her astonishingly bright blue summer sky eyes. Knowing Riley’s penchant for naming her agents after jewels, Jase wasn’t surprised that the gorgeous woman’s code name was Sapphire.

Forcing his attention away from the beauty on the screen, Jase focused on the troubling truth that had been glaringly apparent in the fight scene he witnessed. No question that Sapphire was as well-trained an agent as he’d seen. Hell, given her MMA moves and Kung Fu aerials she’d give Cat Zingano a run for her money. But her refusal to follow Riley’s order, or even Ian’s commands, should be a deal killer, should preempt, negate, any skills she might have. He shook his head in dismay remembering her yanking the com out of her ear, clearly annoyed that her commanders were interfering with her important work. Giving her a direct order. An order that could mean life or death.
Her
life or death.

Turning back to Riley and Ian, Jase took a deep breath. He didn’t want to get ahead of himself. After all, Ian had asked him if he thought the young woman could handle the op they were planning. It was an important assignment, a certain career builder. Particularly for a young female agent on the move. He owed them, and her, a thoughtful response. Dragging his hand though his already tousled hair, he spoke carefully.

“I’ll admit, your agent couldn’t be any more Roberto Ventrilo’s type. Christ, talk about bringing the fucker’s most lascivious wet dream to life.”

Jase didn’t add, although he could have stated the obvious—Sapphire was
every
man’s wet dream, including his own. Shoving at the thought that had his prick saluting in agreement, Jase continued.

“Look, we know what this op will entail. Roberto Ventrilo is the smartest, most vicious son of a bitch I’ve run into and that is saying something. Moreover, he can spot a trap like a Cheetah sees a Gazelle 500 yards away. It’s taken me months to worm my way into his confidence. In the process I’ve killed six men and permanently disabled another half dozen. And my track record doesn’t come close to Ventrilo’s. I’m telling you, this guy eats his enemies for breakfast, picking over their entrails for the choice bits.”

Jase sat back in his chair and stroked his day old beard thoughtfully holding Riley and Ian in his narrowed gaze.

“Add to that that the asshole is the ultimate personification of the target market for Esquire magazine, not only in looks but actions. As sophisticated as the Prince of Wales and as canny as Machiavelli. I don’t have to tell you that the only way we are going to succeed is if we have the smartest, most competent,
and
best trained team on the ground.”

Jase rose to his feet and began pacing across the room. Turning back to the two people who were watching him intently, he added, “A cohesive, crack team that above all else works
as a team
. The underlying criteria being that all members follow orders, knowing that if they don’t the chances of our succeeding are nil.” He paused for emphasis. “And that the chances of the whole damn bunch of us getting killed are excellent.”

~~~

Pausing to shore up her confidence, Gabriella hesitated at the door to Riley Davis’s inner office. She smiled to herself, thinking how difficult it was to call her boss by anything other than her Code Name. The most sophisticated and most intimidating woman she knew had told Gabriella at their first meeting that she could call her by her given name when they were in private. Even so, Gabriella found it difficult to call the imposing woman “Riley.” Her boss’s code name, Diamond, was so much more appropriate. As beautiful and as hard and invincible as the Hope Diamond, her commander epitomized her elected name. Even after working with her on several missions, Gabriella could hardly believe she’d been chosen by the founder of LOTN Inc. The meaning of the acronym had caught her by surprise. At first daunted by the implications of the name,
Ladies of the Night,
the double entendre amused and challenged her. Particularly when she met its progenitor.

Riley Davis was infamous among former female Special Operatives. True to the outdated double standard of the military, the women who served in these exalted and highly dangerous positions weren’t given the titles their male colleagues were. In all branches of the military hierarchy there was no such a thing as a female Seal, or Ranger, or Beret. Rather, these accomplished, highly trained women were known as “adjuncts” to the dangerous missions. The epitome of this rarified stratum of female operatives was Riley Davis.

When she left active duty, Riley had signed on to the various security companies that attracted the best of the former special agents. In private practice the need for trained female agents, who could play the roles required of them, was as great if not greater than in the active duty military. Operating so far off the grid they would need a KQED Quest Microscope to spot them, these secretive companies were in high demand by the corporations, individuals, and government agencies who needed things done that legal entities couldn’t be seen doing. As in all important missions, both sanctioned and unsanctioned, beautiful women were often the bait to take down powerful, unscrupulous men.

In her active duty career, Lt. Colonel Riley Davis had been a superstar—with one exception. The personality trait that finally forced the Lieutenant Colonel out of the active-duty military followed her like the plague into private consulting: Riley couldn’t follow orders for the life of her. Or as it turned out, for any hope she had of working with the elite off-the-grid enterprises. Being the entrepreneurial whiz that she was, Riley decided the only course of action was to create her own company that she named, tongue in cheek,
Ladies of the Night
. She often said that they may as well call themselves what their prospective clients did. The only qualification was that her agents were
“Ladies”
in action as well as name. The only thing her agents couldn’t do was to make good on the sexual favors their jobs and company name implied.

Gabriella didn’t know how her boss and Colonel Ian Ross were connected. She knew that at the least they had a business relationship. They both headed off-the-grid security companies. While there was no proof, spicy rumors abounded insisting that their relationship was more complex. The rampant gossip insinuated that they were lovers. Both parties, however, adamantly denied that there was more than a professional connection. What was apparent was that whenever he had an important mission that involved the highest levels of the U.S. Government and he needed a woman operative, Ian Ross came to the
Ladies of the Night
.
Whatever drew the erudite and famous financier to LOTN, it was clear that his role in the company was important. Gabriella had learned from the other LOTN agents that while Ian Ross was rarely seen, no agent was hired by Riley’s company without the prior approval of the quietly handsome entrepreneur. According to Gabriella’s cohorts, Ian Ross only appeared in person when there was a question of whether the prospective LOTN agent should be hired—or fired.

~~~

Hovering next to the door, Gabriella’s unease shot geyser-high when she recognized one of the male voices inside as Ian Ross’s. Her proudest moment when she left active duty, as adjunct to one of the most decorated Ranger units in the U.S Army, had been when Diamond offered to test her skills. Gabriella had worked with other LOTN agents and done well enough that Diamond had indicated that she was being considered for a solo mission, the golden ring that all the LOTN operatives lived and died for. But the fact that Ross was joining them for the upcoming discussion signaled that her days at LOTN were likely coming to a painful and short-lived conclusion.

Tentatively knocking on the door, she swallowed past the lump in her throat and followed Diamond’s curt order to enter. Once inside, her nervousness ratcheted to astronomical heights. Not only was Ian Ross sitting across from Riley Davis in one of the club chairs circling an ornate steel and glass coffee table, but another man was planted between them. Gabriella didn’t have time to do more that cast a furtive glance at the eye candy who casually nodded to her. For a brief moment she asked her self-sabotaging devils why, oh, why, did so many men who looked like they’d stepped off the cover of GQ also look as dominatingly powerful as this man did. As though he held her fate in his elegant hands.

Looking up at the wall, Gabriella groaned, knowing that her fears were warranted. Not only was she faced with three powerful individuals who clearly were deciding her future, but the lights on the wall-sized screen confirmed that they had been reviewing the video of her last mission. The mission in which she took down the Diablos Cartel leader, and killed his second in command. And, incidentally, the mission in which she disobeyed four direct orders from her commander. Not to mention one from Ian Ross, who, according to her fellow agents, never stepped in unless it was absolutely necessary. To her knowledge, the only times he did, the agent in question never again worked for LOTN.

Gathering her shredded emotional reserves, Gabriella focused on her boss who should have been her most dependable supporter. She forced herself to take a deep breath and spoke in as natural a tone as she could muster, trying not to notice how high and squeaky her normally modulated voice was.

“You wished to see me, Riley?”

Confirming that not only was her leader not her most dependable supporter but that she may have been her least, Diamond answered curtly, “I wouldn’t have ordered you to come here, Gabriella, if I hadn’t wanted to see you.”

Biting down hard on her now swollen bottom lip, Gabriella did her best to swallow past the golf ball sized lump lodged in her throat. Not daring to look at the two men who were no doubt enjoying her unease, Gabriella decided that since she was going down, she would do so graciously. Or, if not graciously, at least with her head held high. Sucking in as big a breath as her overworked lungs could manage, she tipped up her chin and met Diamond’s cold gaze.

“I understand that you are angry with me, Col. Davis. Clearly I’ve disappointed you. While that is painful to me, I understand.”

When Riley didn’t answer, merely hardened her gaze, Gabriella’s hair-trigger temper flared. All right dammit, she’d been fired before and she was being fired now. But if these two, make that three, supercilious people thought they could humiliate her, beat her down, they were wrong.

Biting her lip so painfully hard she was sure it was bleeding, Gabriella said carefully, “Thank you for meeting with me.”

She glanced up at the now blank television screen and nodded. “Clearly, you have more than necessary grounds for dismissal. I agree. Now if you will excuse me, I won’t bother you further.”

As quickly as she could, Sapphire turned and sprinted to the door. It was a graceless exit but knowing that the angry tears burning her eyelids would fall at any minute she was determined not to let any of them see her crumble. To her surprise, it was Ian Ross’s voice, not Diamond’s, that stopped her at the door.