THE FIRST SIN (8 page)

“I’m sorry,” was all I could think to say at the moment. The urge to reach out to Donovan, to comfort him somehow, was almost overwhelming. And so unlike me. I didn’t do huggy-huggy. Especially with a stranger. But the thought of his sister being sold in a sex slave auction sent more flurries of cold that iced all of my insides.

The waiter arrived with the bruschetta, but we both ignored it.

Donovan looked me dead in the eye and a different kind of shiver went through me. No one should have eyes like that.

“You were clear about a few things and now I want to be clear on some things myself,” he said. “I won’t do anything that jeopardizes the operation or our people.” The look in his eyes turned diamond hard. “But I won’t stop until I bring these bastards down and bring my sister home.”

March 29

Friday morning

When I stepped off the elevator into RED’s human trafficking department, Special Agent Suzanna Jones stopped in front of me and gave me a high five.

“Way to go, Lexi,” she said with a grin.

I wasn’t sure what the high five was for—at first, but I went with it. Suzanna hadn’t given me a chance to ask before she continued down the walkway.

Angela Rollins strode by, a teasing light in her hazel eyes. “Not only did you take care of that jerkwad boyfriend, but you ended up with the sexiest partner I’ve seen in a long time.”

Oh. That’s what the high five had been for. I shrugged even though I totally agreed with her about the sexy partner. He was so damn hot that it was dangerous having him as a partner for just that reason.

But Gary . . . was he really a jerkwad? I’d never forgive him, but I couldn’t just throw out the window the good memories and the fact that he was, overall, a decent guy. Despite being a cheating sonofabitch.

Okay, so I have a split personality.

Angela grinned over her shoulder before she headed down one set of steps to the CC.

Thoughts of my conversation with Donovan last night kept churning in my mind. I had to sort this out with Oxford.

I stood at Darlene’s desk at exactly the time for my appointment and she gave a haughty sniff that so did not go with her Beatles look.

She pressed a button. “Agent Steele is here.”

“Send her in,” came Oxford’s voice.

“Have a seat,” Oxford said as soon as I had closed the door behind me, which was a good sign. I picked the closest chair and sat in it. Oxford studied me with her assessing dark eyes. Today she wore a deep red silk blouse over another silk shirt. She might not go out in the field, but she was as armed as we were. My own Glock pressed against the chair. When I went undercover I wouldn’t have it and the sense of safeness it gave me.

Oxford folded her hands on her table. She didn’t close the blinds, so the entire CC was visible—and we were visible to them. “Is this about Agent Donovan?”

Trust her to get straight to the point.

“Yes.” I tried not to squirm in my chair. She made me feel like a schoolgirl being evaluated by the principal. “If he’s going to be my co-TS, I need to know what he brings to the table.” I leaned forward in my chair. “And why he’s allowed to work a family member’s case.”

“You walk a fine line questioning my decisions, Steele.” Oxford’s eyes hardened and I wanted to shrink away from her. “However, I do understand your concern.” Phew.

“When he served, Nick Donovan was one of the best SEALs the Navy had.

One of the best they’d ever had.” Oxford’s tone was as hard and even as ever.

“As to the whys of his leaving the Navy with an honorable discharge, that is his personal business.”

She leaned forward, her hands still clasped on her desktop. “I have been attempting to recruit Donovan for six years due to his skills and how valuable an asset he would be to RED.” OK, she was barely telling me more than Donovan. Were this guy’s skills that big of a state secret?

“But his sister?” I knew I should shut my mouth and of course didn’t Oxford looked at me like I had some nerve questioning her. “This time Donovan came to me. He agreed to sign the contract tying him to RED for a limited amount of time, his only provision being that he could join the operation that would help locate his sister.

“He is an extremely valuable resource.” She maintained her hard expression and tone. “And that is more than you need to know, Steele. I expect full cooperation with Donovan throughout this operation.”

Yeah, he would be an asset, even though it was hard to accept the fact that I wouldn’t be the sole TS on this op. I might have done the same thing in Oxford’s shoes. “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “As far as going undercover, Perry is already trained—“ “Enough,” she said. I knew if I said one more word against Donovan, I was in deep shit. “Fully brief Agent Donovan in his role as your partner.” She gave a slight nod to the door. “He’s expecting you now.”

I got to my feet. “Thank you, ma’am,” I said before I headed to the door.

“Steele.” Her voice sounded a little less hard as I looked back to her. “Good luck.”

“Thank you,” I said before I turned and walked out the door, closing it behind me.

I didn’t even have time to mull over what she’d said as Nick Donovan chose that moment to round the counter, coming straight for me.

Sweaty nights, tangled sheets, and a hard muscular body between my thighs and pinning me down were the first thoughts that came to mind the moment I saw the man. He was raw power and masculinity in one satisfying, tasty package. Today he wore a blue overshirt that brought out the brilliant blue of his eyes. His dark gray T-shirt stretched across his well-defined chest and abs. Those biceps and big, strong hands were made to hold a woman as he brought her to orgasm after orgasm.

And this was my new partner. Christ.

Get yourself under control, Steele.

“Conference room three is available.” Donovan didn’t have any expression on his hard features as he inclined his head toward the row of rooms along one of the catwalks above the CC. It was almost like last night hadn’t happened, and we hadn’t had our friendly little heart-to-heart. I felt like a dopey puppy trying to keep up with his long strides. My shoes made no sound on the black tile catwalk as we passed over the busy CC, past conference rooms one and two, and reached three.

As I followed him, I remembered coming in Wednesday and seeing an unfamiliar backside walking into a conference room. It’d been Donovan.

Definitely the kind of ass a woman wouldn’t forget.

Donovan held the door open and I walked through. The leather chair hugged my body as I slipped into a seat in front of a high-tech keyboard with a touchpad instead of keys. I registered my thumbprint on the scanner before it allowed me access to the files we needed.

At one end of the table a screen materialized, and I cued up a photograph with a list of stats beside a man’s face. “This is our informant, Chancy Yeager, who coughed up more info Wednesday to Takamoto.”

The informant was handsome but slick. He used his good looks and charisma to his advantage, and he liked the lifestyle he led with the money we paid him for solid information. “Yeager’s a very dependable informant, so we think his info is good.” I leaned forward and folded my arms on the conference table as I studied Donovan.

“According to what he leaked to us, the most recent group, thirteen women, were just sold on the auction block two weeks ago,” I said. “His info is going to help us reach our objective and save those women before they’re shipped to the international buyers.”

Donovan remained silent but his expression grew darker and darker as I continued. “We tracked down the last auction to a chat room on the Internet.

As you know, the slavers included footage of the men and women as they were auctioned.”

The anger overcoming me burned as I went on and thought about Donovan’s sister. “We failed to find the actual location of the auction.” I tried to get a grip on my emotions as I thought of Randolph. “We were certain we were close to finding them, but that’s when bad info was fed to Agent Randolph.”

Donovan looked at me intently and I cleared my throat. “Our current intel leads us to believe some of the women have already been delivered to their new ‘owners’ within the US.” Even saying the word owners made me want to take a bat to the head of each man involved. Or woman, if that was the case.

I glanced at Donovan, and the intense fury in his gaze was so clear that I caught my breath. All those hard, rough edges made him look dangerous now lethal. On the table he clenched one of his hands hard enough that veins stood out on the back of it. Another taut vein ran along his neck and his jaw was tense, his eyes narrowed at the screen. Still looking at Donovan, I continued. “The women who were sold to foreign buyers we are certain haven’t been shipped yet. From what Yeager gave us, within days this group will be gone. We’ve got to get to them first and, hopefully, stop the next auction before it happens. The clock is ticking.”

Donovan said nothing but looked back at Yeager’s profile. I clicked another button on the keypad and a second photo flickered in the air. “This is our gem. Holly Endicott.” The picture I brought up was an image of a beautiful socialite posing on a red carpet and wearing a beige, ankle length sequined dress. Long, dark hair and a brilliant smile. “She’s a billion-dollar baby. A player, big into kink with the club we’re going to penetrate.”

The word “penetrate” made me want to cough because getting into those clubs would involve a lot of that, in particular. ‘Our man Yeager charmed the pants off Endicott and she managed to get us tickets into this exclusive club.”

I looked at Donovan. “Yeager’s a bit of a bad boy and apparently Endicott has a thing for men who Very Rich Father would be appalled to see her bring home.”

Donovan leaned back in his chair and studied her picture.

“So she’s our ‘in’ to the inner circle of these three clubs.” I brought up an image to replace hers, this one of an exclusive nightclub. “The Champagne Slipper.” Another. “The Crystal Twilight.” A third. “The Glass House. “Our objective is to infiltrate their exclusive inner circle and ‘playrooms.’” I met Donovan’s eyes again. “The three are chic nightclubs, and fronts for the BDSM clubs Endicott supplied the tickets for.”

Donovan’s expression remained neutral as I continued. “Back to Yeager.” I returned my gaze to the screen. “According to him there are three men who are potential ringleaders of the slave auctions. He can’t give us a definite, but he gave us this much.”

I touched the pad to bring up head shots of three men side by side. “Benjamin Cabot, Jason Strong, and Lucca Tarantino.” I clicked to a screen with Cabot’s information first. Cabot’s olive-hazel eyes stared back at me from a classically handsome face. The fortysomething man looked fit beneath his Armani suit.

“Cabot is among the mega rich with a home on Marlboro Street. Old money.

Boston Brahmin.” I glanced at Donovan. “In case you’re not familiar with it, it’s one of the most prestigious properties in all of Boston. You’ve gotta have money to live there. Lots.” I went over some more statistics. Age, net worth, activities like tennis and golfing, and so on, before bringing up Lucca Tarantino’s mug and stats. Tarantino was Italian, approximately the same age, early forties, and had a debonair air to his bearing. Angular features, olive skin, stunning emerald green eyes, and black hair. He made a pretty picture—like a young 007 who was heavily into playing and watching pallone, as the Italians called soccer. “Where Cabot is old money, Tarantino is new. Made his bucks in the software industry after immigrating to the States as a child in a poor family.” I shook my head. “Smart man, or had some insider information, because he pulled out of the stock market before it crashed big-time. Left him pretty wealthy.” I gave more of Tarantino’s stats before moving on.

“Jason Strong is all over the board.” I studied the man’s heart-thudding profile. Strong could be mistaken for a very hot, older Vin Diesel—shaved head, muscles and all. “Strong has quite a stash of money, and even has his own private island.” His stats were pretty much the same as the other men.

Close to their forties, single, divorced—Tarantino three times—and each man donated large sums of money to various charities. Diesel, I mean Strong, was heavily into weightlifting—which was oh. so obvious, and a little interesting because of his last name. He was a major football fan. Big Red Sox fan as well, so he had a single point in his favor from me.

The laugh I gave was humorless. “Ironically enough, Tarantino gives a good deal of cash to women’s shelters.” I leaned back in my chair. These three apparently get together on occasion to play racquetball and gamble a bit at their establishments. In private of course.”

Donovan drummed his fingers on the black granite conference table. “What makes these three men suspects?” I touched the pad again and the screen vanished. “Women seem to disappear every so often from all three men’s clubs.” Donovan frowned. “How do we know it’s related to the slave auctions?”

I frowned and tilted my head. “With the ticket Endicott gave Yeager to get him in. he had the opportunity to overhear one of the ‘regular Doms’ talking about buying one of the other missing girls in our case. The Dom pointed to another man’s sub, and said something like, ‘In the auction coming up I’d pay good money to buy that submissive. I’ll talk to the Man.’”

I let out a huff of breath. “That Dom who was looking to buy the girl stopped going to the club nights. The sub he’d said he wanted to buy disappeared.

“That missing girl’s real Dom was apparently pretty pissed when she vanished, from what Yeager said, so it leads us to believe ‘the Man’ was one of our three suspects.” “I need more than that, Steele,” Donovan said.

“Well, you’ve got it.” With another touch to the pad in front of me, I brought up the face of a young brunette woman who looked drugged out of her mind.

“Yeager recognized this woman from the vids of the last auction.” I cleared my throat again. ‘The same auction your sister was sold in.” Donovan’s face turned rock solid. “Yeager is sure she’s the sub who disappeared.”