THE FIRST SIN (5 page)

For a moment I just stared at my backpack. The only people who had that number were my FAS handlers. It stopped ringing. I hurried to my back and snatched the phone out and looked at the incoming caller display. Unknown.

That’s what it always said when a FAS tried to get a hold of me. One of the Cubans must have screwed with my phone. It rang again. And I stared at the display as it lit up. I didn’t want to answer it. I didn’t want to know what they were going to ask me to do next. I gritted my teeth and instantly regretted it as pain shot from my jaw to my temple. FAS bastards.

I grabbed the phone. “Redbird,” I said in a harsh snap. “Alexi Steele,” a female voice said, immediately sending a shock through me. None of my handlers were female, and no one ever called me by my real name. The woman continued, “If you don’t want to be killed in that motel room, I suggest you leave within the next three minutes.” My bare skinned chilled. “Who is this?”

“If you make it out of there alive, I have a proposition for you.”

“What—“

The woman gave me an address on Portland Street in Boston, not far from my Southie home. “I believe you have a minimum of two minutes left before you’ll have company.” She hung up before I had a chance to respond. The part about “two minutes” clicked first as I snapped my cell phone closed.

I swore and tossed the phone into my backpack, jerked on a clean pair of cargo pants and a tank top, and jammed the “borrowed” pistol into my pack with my own weapons. I left my discarded clothing and the rest of my mess.

No time to clean up.

After I hitched my backpack on my shoulders, I slipped out of my motel room.

I headed out the rear then made my way around the side of the building where I could see the road. Still some distance away two PNR jeeps barreled down the dirt road.

“Shit.” Must have been the fourth dickhead who’d tracked me down.

Being dark-haired like the locals—as well as too short to tower above anyone, even if I wore stilts—made it easier to slip into a crowd and avoid being spotted. Not being covered with blood was a big help.

As I walked through the crowded street, I kept myself on full alert, my senses automatically cataloguing everything including possible escape routes.

Who was that woman and how the hell had she known about what was going down, and how did she know anything about me?

The next day I walked into the building on Portland Street and was introduced to the world of RED by Karen Oxford. My whole body was sweating now and my arms were like rubber. I leaned my head against the bag on my forearm. Oxford had been just as stern and imposing then as she was now. Something about her made me feel as if I should come to attention.

Like facing a superior when I was Special Forces in the Army. Before I’d fucked up. I grabbed a towel from a shelf in a closet in the back of my office, near the corner where my shirt was lying. I always kept spare clothing in my office—casual and dressy, in case I needed either for undercover work, so I had plenty of extra things to wear.

I started dabbing my face, my neck, and beneath the hair at my nape with the towel.

The moment I met Oxford, every single nuance of it, was burned into my mind. “I’ve been observing you for some time now, always a RED agent following your trail,” she’d said, and my skin had gone cold.

She tapped a folder that was lying on the table in front of her with her forefinger. “Sniper in Special Forces before you made one hell of a mistake and you were court-martialed. Then an organization you can’t even name broke you. Trapped you into working for that organization, where you’re required to assassinate anyone they tell you to. You are sent to country after country and you are never told why you are ordered to kill these men and women. There is no time limit and you have no way out. They continue to hold that same threat over you like a noose.”

I’d sat, stunned, as she laid out my professional life on the table.

“I am prepared to offer you a way out, Alexi.”

That’s when Karen Oxford saved my life.

RED had been my ticket out of hell.

I walked to my desk and plopped into my chair. The wheels made bumping sounds as I rolled across the carpet in front of my desk. The cotton of the towel was soft as I continued to dry myself off.

A few framed photos of my brothers, sister, and parents were on my black-and-chrome desk next to a chrome reading lamp, a huge computer screen, and an open Operation Cinderella manila folder.

My bare office showed just how much time I’d had to make it the least bit

“homey” since I’d been promoted. I braced my elbows on the tabletop and rubbed my sweaty temples with my fingers.

Randolph hadn’t gotten out. In fact her last moments had been nothing but hell. No matter what Oxford said, I couldn’t feel that it wasn’t my fault.

I braced the heels of my palms against my forehead. Going undercover into the world Randolph had been immersed in was my next step.

A step I was more than willing to take to even the score for not only the auctioned women, but for Agent Stacy Randolph who hadn’t deserved her fate.

March 27

Wednesday evening

Nick studied the woman who knelt in a submissive position facing away from him. Her naked ass was high, her wrists tied behind her back and her face turned sideways against the dungeon’s stone floor.

Tears trickled from Nandra’s eyes, her mascara streaking her cheeks. She was biting down on the ball gag but moaning with pleasure.

Before he took another swing, he rubbed his palm over the warm skin as he examined his handiwork. Her flesh was bright pink everywhere he’d swatted her with the leather paddle.

Hard, like she always wanted. With Nandra, the more she was punished the more intense her climax. She moaned again and pushed back so that her ass was even higher, which told him how close she was to orgasm. She wanted more and she wanted it now.

Nick swatted her hard on the left ass cheek. Nandra’s whole body rocked with her climax as she collapsed to the floor. No doubt the sound she was making behind the ball gag would have been a scream of intense pleasure while she squirmed on the dungeon’s stone floor. He moved to the dungeon’s sink and washed his hands while Nandra whimpered behind the ball gag.

When he looked over his shoulder she was staring at him with clear adoration.

She’d been a good sub, good experience for what he was about to do within a couple of days. Thanks to Master Richardson’s tutelage over the past few weeks, Nick was now proficient with most forms of BDSM punishment, including becoming an expert with the whip.

It was time to let Nandra go. She wouldn’t be happy, but he was going undercover.

And Nick would have the delectable Alexi Steele to keep him more than occupied.

March 27

Wednesday early evening

Their bodies moved together, sweaty, hot, sultry. The muscles in his back flexed as he slowly slid his erection in and out of the woman. The blond’s breasts were large, her nipples hard peaks. She moaned every time his chest grazed her breasts, and she gasped as he thrust into her and drew back out.

The smell of sex was strong and his gaze was focused entirely on the woman’s face as she tipped her head back and moaned even louder.

It could have been a real turn-on to watch. If it wasn’t my boyfriend with another woman. The pain in my chest and the flames flushing my body had nothing to do with the heat between Gary and the woman with her long legs wrapped around his hips. ‘

“You sonofabitch.”

Gary jerked his head up and the woman let out a scream nearly loud enough to shatter one of the lamps. “Lexi.” Gary’s face flushed red straight up to his blond crew cut. He scrambled from the bed as he grabbed a sheet and wrapped it around his hips. “Oh, shit.” “You better believe ‘Oh, shit.’” It wasn’t far to the closet where he kept his baseball bat. Everything I touched seemed to burn my hand, from the closet’s doorknob to the grip of the aluminum baseball bat.

“What the hell are you doing?” When he saw what I was holding, Gary backed away so fast he tripped on the edge of the sheet he clutched.

My fingers ached from gripping the bat hard with one hand while slapping the thickest part against my palm. “Uh, Lexi.” Gary managed to keep on his feet. “Christ, I—I’m sorry.”

“You’re going to be a lot sorrier.” I ground my teeth so hard I probably came close to cracking a molar as I headed for the kitchen, carrying the bat. The ache in my gut grew as his betrayal hit home.

The knife drawer squeaked when I jerked it open. Perfect. This one would do.

I clenched the handle of a butcher knife in my free hand. Both weapons felt good and solid as blood pounded in my temples and I faced Gary.

His jaw dropped. “What the—“

A shriek cut off the rest of his sentence. The very tall blond he’d been in bed with stood in the bedroom doorway. Apparently he wanted a lay with longer legs to spread than me. She was wearing his T-shirt.

When my over shirt fell open enough for her to get a good view of the Glock holstered at my side, I winced at her shriek. Oh, yeah, he’d gotten himself a real screamer. I hefted the bat against my shoulder and Gary’s eyes widened as I met his gaze. I didn’t blink.

“Lexi—“ His Adam’s apple bobbed as he glanced to the bat and knife.

At that moment I could almost feel the satisfaction of hitting a grand slam with Gary’s balls. I gave an evil smile and glanced at his nuts before looking back at his face, which had gone white. He knew exactly what I’d been thinking. Forget that. I knew a better way to damage his manhood. I jerked open the front door of his first-floor apartment hard enough to rattle the hinges, then strode to the front door of the triple-decker apartment building.

Cool spring air smacked me in the face when I headed for the short flight of stairs leading to the concrete sidewalk. Each step creaked as I jogged down to the street.

I went straight for what Gary loved more than anything—

His shiny black F-150 parked in front of the trip where his apartment was.

A bunch of Gary’s neighbors hung out on the back porches of their trips, listening to a game on the tube and shouting at each other from one balcony to another as the game blasted from their TVs. Smells of popcorn, hot dogs, and beer floated from the balconies.

Not likely anyone could hear what I was about to do over all the noise.

The butcher knife sank between the tread of the rear driver’s-side tire as easily as Gary had been sliding into that blond who was starting to get the neighbors’ attention with her shrieking.

I focused on the truck and tried not to picture what I’d just seen. That—

that—

The pain that had taken hold in my chest now made my entire body ache. I’d trusted him. I’d cared for him. The front driver’s-side tire seemed like a good place to leave the butcher knife. Gary cheated on me hammered my mind, and by the time I picked up the baseball bat I was practically on fire again.

“You.” My Southie accent revved up. “Fucking.” I raised the bat just over my shoulder. “Sonofa—“ I reached the driver’s door. “—

bitch.”

Glass scattered over the back of my hands as the driver’s side window shattered. My hair swung in my eyes as I gave another good swing and took the bat to the door. Metal gave way with a satisfying crunch, the impact reverberating through my arms.

Coach Pacholewski would be proud. What a way to put to use my four years as a star player on my high school baseball team.

Then Randolph’s death hit me again like another blow. I’d come over for comfort and intimacy with Gary. I’d needed him.

More anger, hurt, and pain went into every swing of the bat. The headlights and fog lamps went next as I put every bit of pain into each swing. The windshield spider-webbed when the bat made contact, but the passenger door window shattered all over his leather seat.

Like a hammer punch to my heart, Gary’s betrayal and Randolph’s death hit me hard enough that my eyes began to ache.

Not now. Not now, not now, not now.

I didn’t do tears. I didn’t do crying.

If I couldn’t cry over Randolph, I certainly wasn’t going to cry because of Gary.

Damnit. Moisture gathered at the corners of my eyes and I had to fight to keep even a single tear from rolling down my cheek.

Screw Gary.

Putting everything into every swing helped me fight back the pain, and I let it all out with that bat.

This one was for Gary.

This one was for Randolph.

This one was for me.

Some of Gary’s neighbors now leaned over the railings of their porches or came out and stood in the street. A few were laughing their asses off and made cracks at Gary while one guy said, “Fuck, that’s gotta hurt.”

In this Boston neighborhood, no one interfered—we Southies stuck together and stayed out of each other’s business.

Before I could take a swing at the passenger door, large hands grabbed my shoulders from behind. My heart hurt when I whirled around and met Gary’s blue eyes.

He wore a pair of jeans but no shoes. I wanted to pound on his large bare chest. To shout, to scream. Gary gripped me harder by the shoulders. He’d seen me bring down men twice my size in jujitsu sparring, so he was taking a big risk. Didn’t matter that he was a massive bodybuilder. I’d put him in a world of hurt.

“How could you?” My voice came out hoarse as I looked into his handsome face. A face I had trusted.

“I’m sorry.” He squeezed my shoulders, and he looked like the Gary I had cared about... before now. “I was going to tell you, but I didn’t know how.”

I shook out of his hold. My throat felt like it was closing off. “You don’t screw around before breaking off a relationship.”

“I’m sorry—“

“Fuck you, Gary.” I gestured to the door where the blond had disappeared.

“Better yet, go back to screwing her.” He didn’t let me go. “You’ve been closing me out, Lex. More and more all the time. There are parts of you that I could never reach even when we were together.” For a moment I couldn’t say anything. The job. The job that meant the world to me forced me to keep secrets, even from Gary.