Warmth pressed against her mouth. And memories of last night—when he’d kissed her in the shower, when he’d thrust inside her—filled her mind and sent sharp electrical currents of arousal all through her body.
She lifted her chin, pressed her lips against his more firmly, and tangled the fingers of her free hand in the T-shirt at his chest.
He groaned, and that hand against her lower back pulled her even closer into the heat of his body. And then his tongue pushed between her lips and dipped into her mouth, giving her a sinful, sexy, so-not-enough taste.
She moaned, tried to get closer. He answered by letting go of the hand at her back and sliding his palm down to cup her ass and pull her so close she felt the hard ridge of his growing erection against her lower belly.
This was the way it could be. The way it could always be if she just gave in. If she admitted how she felt. If she opened herself fully and showed him all of her.
He won’t forget the things you’ve done. He won’t forgive you.
The hard, coarse voice of reality slapped a hand against her chest and pushed her away from him. She pulled her mouth from his and pressed her face against his chest, frantically fighting for control.
“That wasn’t cover,” he whispered in her ear.
Eve didn’t push away, and he didn’t release her. He just went on holding her, breathing warmth over her suddenly chilled skin and rubbing a hand down her back. And though she knew for her own sanity she needed to get out of his arms, she couldn’t seem to move her feet.
“That was the real you, Evie. Wanting me the same way you did in that stupid apartment in Beirut. The same way you did last night. I know more about you than you think. I know you can’t walk away from me without it tearing a part of you to shreds. Just like I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all these months.”
Eve’s eyes slid closed, and she breathed deeply through her nose. Focused on the push and pull of air in her lungs in the hopes it would ease the sharp ache growing in the middle of her chest. She’d given up happily ever after when Sam died. Had never expected to be teased with it by another man. And now here was Zane. The person she’d tried countless times to forget and had never been able to. The person who made her want things even Sam had never stirred inside her.
“It’s nice to see you two haven’t killed each other yet.”
Eve stiffened at the voice and whipped around. A man stood feet from them on the path, hands tucked in the front pocket of his slacks, light jacket over his white button-down. His neatly trimmed blond hair blew gently in the breeze, and those deep, familiar blue eyes hinted at mischief.
“Carter,” Eve breathed.
James Dietrick’s smile widened. “Is that the best you can do, Juliet?”
Whether it was joy over seeing a familiar face or simply relief at getting away from Zane, Eve didn’t know. She pulled away from Zane and wrapped her arms around Carter’s neck, hugging him tightly. “Oh my God. What . . . ? How . . . ?”
He chuckled against her, squeezed her tight, and then let go. “I figured you guys might need some help. Don’t worry. No one from the Agency knows I’m here.”
Eve lowered to her feet. “Olivia?”
Carter’s smile turned grim. “Nothing yet. We’re still looking, though.”
A wave of sickness rolled through her belly.
Fingers gripping the backpack strap against his shoulder, Zane reached around her and shook Carter’s hand. “It’s nice to see you, man.”
Carter returned the handshake, then slid on his sunglasses and glanced around the park. The people who’d been watching them earlier had gone back to swinging and throwing tennis balls for their dogs. “Where’s this meeting taking place?”
“Park bench,” Eve said, refocusing on what she could do now. Miller would find Olivia. Zane had said he was the best of the best, and if he’d been DIA, she had at least a tiny bit of hope. “Down the path.”
Carter turned, and she and Zane fell into step beside him.
“You’ve created a heck of a mess, Eve,” Carter said.
At her right, Zane snorted. “The woman has a knack for finding trouble.”
Eve ignored him and looked toward Carter on her other side. “I didn’t have anything to do with that bombing. If the Agency looks into it, they’ll see I have no connection to Chechnya. And Zane was just in the wrong—”
“Eve.” Carter stopped and looked down at her. “Five hundred thousand dollars was deposited into your personal account two days ago. Through back channels, the Agency tracked it to a group in western Chechnya. The government has already seized your holdings. In a matter of hours, your face is going to be all over every police station computer screen and news broadcast in the country. That’s why I’m here.” He tugged off his glasses, and his worried blue eyes met hers. “I think it’s time you turned yourself in and got a lawyer.”
The earth shifted beneath Eve’s feet, and the park started to swirl in front of her eyes.
Strong hands wrapped around her shoulders and tugged her back against a warm, solid male chest. “Hold it together, beautiful. We’re in a public place.”
Zane’s voice echoed in her ears and slowly trickled through the fog clouding her brain. Hold it together . . . Hold it together . . .
Five hundred thousand dollars.
Anger and disbelief coiled beneath her skin and threatened to explode. She closed her eyes and leaned back into Zane. Don’t lose it.
Zane’s broad hands massaged her upper arms. “Who strong-armed the Agency into awarding that defense contract to Aegis for Humbolt’s life?”
“How the hell would I know that?” Carter asked. “That shit’s decided by committee.”
“Was it Roberts?”
Eve stilled against Zane’s chest.
“ADD Roberts,” Carter said in a monotone voice. “In counterintelligence. You think he was involved in your failed raid in Guatemala?”
“I’ve heard . . . whispers,” Zane said.
His familiar voice echoed in his chest and vibrated into Eve’s body. But it was Carter’s silence that set her on edge.
“Christ,” Carter finally whispered. “Not here. Let’s get further down the path.”
Eve opened her eyes and pulled away from Zane, but before she turned, she caught the look on his resolute face. The one that said, Don’t worry, I’m not leaving you. The one that sent ripples of awareness all through her body.
They moved down the path and into the trees, and when Carter felt they were far enough so that no one could hear him, he stopped and turned their way. “I could get into serious hot water for this, but fuck it. You two are already in so much hot water it’s boiling. Roberts is gunning for the deputy director position within the Company. He’s got sway within the Agency. Big sway. Whether he had a hand in Aegis’s appointment to that op, I have no idea. But I will tell you this. He’s got no love for your boss Ryder. If you’re asking me on the record if he set Aegis up to take the fall in Guatemala, I’d say that’s bullshit. Everyone in the Company wanted Humbolt back alive. Off the record, though, I’d say most of us thought it was a suicide mission. No black ops team has ever infiltrated that cartel’s stronghold without major casualties.”
Eve’s gaze slowly slid Zane’s way.
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t look at her. His intense gaze was locked solidly on Carter. “Did Roberts know Eve had been tipped off that the op had been compromised?”
“I don’t know.” Carter frowned. “It’s possible, I guess. He might have known.”
So all of this—the Agency coming down on her—she was being punished because of Zane’s connection to Aegis? No. That was too . . . fucking simple.
She looked up at Carter. “Humbolt is the key to all of this. What was he working on?”
“I—”
“Eve.” Zane’s hand against her arm drew Eve around, and she looked down the path, toward a redheaded woman wearing slacks and a white blouse rolled up to her elbows, h
eading their direction.
“That’s Natalie,” she breathed.
Natalie tucked her shoulder-length hair behind her ears and eyed their group. When she caught Eve’s gaze, she nodded, then sat on the bench. But her eagle eyes were watching every move Zane and Carter made, and Eve knew she was surprised to find the players had multiplied.
Eve didn’t know the woman well. Natalie was in her midthirties and had been in the business a little longer than Eve, but her agency had always been more than willing to cooperate when Eve needed help, and over the years she’d been a solid contact Eve could count on.
They headed her direction. Sitting next to Natalie on the bench, Eve nodded toward the two men. “This is Carter and Sawyer.”
Natalie’s dark gaze locked on Zane. “I recognize you.”
“Don’t believe everything you see or read,” he said with a wink. “It’s never true.”
A wry smile curled her lips. “I never do.” Her humor faded as she focused on Eve. “People within your organization are asking questions. My agency’s been able to head them off so far, but it won’t be long before they discover we met.”
“I appreciate that. Natalie, I need to know about the file Tyrone Smith was supposed to sell to me. It’s at the root of all of this. It wasn’t a list of compromised agents like you led me to believe.”
Natalie’s wary gaze drifted to Zane, then Carter.
“It’s okay,” Eve assured her. “They’re safe.”
Natalie was silent a moment, looking them both over again, and Eve’s adrenaline surged over the possibility the woman might not tell what she knew.
Finally, Natalie’s gaze settled on Eve once more. “No. It wasn’t. I—”
“That was my doing,” Carter cut in.
Eve’s gaze snapped his way. “What?”
He glanced toward Natalie and then focused on Eve. “CSIS has been in contact with the Agency about this since before Humbolt was killed. When we realized Smith was the middleman Humbolt was using, we needed someone to get close to the file. ADD Roberts suggested you. He thinks quite highly of you, Juliet. Or at least, he did.”
Eve’s brow lowered. “What does Humbolt have to do with all of this?”
“A few years ago,” Natalie said, “a research team at the State University of New York chemically synthesized an artificial polio virus from scratch. You might have heard about it in the news. They started with the genetic sequence, which they found online, then created small DNA strands, which they combined to reconstruct the viral genome. They then added a chemical cocktail that brought the entire pathogenic virus to life. Polio, as you know, is an ineffective biological weapon, but Humbolt was applying their research techniques to other viruses.”
“What kind of viruses?” Zane asked. “Ebola, Marburg, Venezuelan equine encephalitis . . . all of those have been considered as biological weapons but ruled out because of a lack of efficient delivery method.”
“Correct,” Natalie said, looking up at him. “But Humbolt wasn’t concerned with those viruses.”
“What was he concerned with?” Eve asked.
Natalie focused on her again. “Our intel says one particularly nasty virus that was eradicated more than twenty years ago. One that’s officially only stored at two high-security laboratories in the world. One of which is in Russia. And the other—”
Shit. “The United States,” Eve breathed.
“Bingo,” Natalie answered.
“Smallpox,” Zane said, his gaze growing more serious. “You’re telling us Humbolt was working on the production of an artificially produced smallpox virus.”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Eve asked. “Why waste his time creating something for the government they already have access to?”
“Because he wasn’t working for the US government, Juliet,” Natalie said. “Adam Humbolt was a French citizen. Our intel says he was preparing to shop what he had to the highest bidder for a large sum of cash.”
“Holy shit,” Zane muttered.
Holy shit didn’t even begin to cover it. Slowly, Eve’s gaze slid back to Zane. He’d been right. The US government had set Aegis up. They’d needed that op in Guatemala to fail. They’d wanted Humbolt dead. And Zane had been caught in the crosshairs.
Her throat grew thick. She had to focus on the here and now. She faced Natalie again. “So the file—”
“We think it contained Humbolt’s research notes,” Carter answered. When she glanced his way again, he said, “We knew Smith was feeling out the competition and that Humbolt was ready to sell what he had to the highest bidder. The smallpox genome has over two hundred thousand base pairs, so creating an artificial virus is still years away, but his research would cut that time in half with the right scientists working on what he’d already found. The Agency was concerned and sent you in to get it back.”
“Without my knowing.”
“Let’s just say there were . . . questions”—he glanced toward Zane—“about where your loyalties rested. After the incident in Guatemala, Roberts wanted to make sure you were still committed to the Company. And then all this happened with the Chechens and Sawyer and you—”
Eve’s temper shot up. “I’m not in league with any Chechen terrorists.”
“I know that,” he said on a sigh. “But someone’s setting you up to make it look like you are. The big question is why.”
Eve’s pulse shot up. If anything, this little meeting had created more questions than answers.
That file was going to save her life, though. If she wanted to clear her name—clear Zane’s name—she needed to find it and prove her loyalty to the United States. She looked at Carter. “So where is the file now?”
“That, we don’t know.” He tucked his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “Smith was supposed to make the drop with you. The fact that he didn’t leads us to believe someone got to him before we did. Your disappearance from the scene of the bombing led to questions. Originally the Agency just wanted to pick you up to find out what had gone wrong. But after that cash was dumped into your account, and with the file still missing, well . . . let’s just say your involvement in all of this has jumped a few notches.”
A shriek echoed from the direction of the playground. Zane turned to look. From where he was standing, he had a better view through the trees than Eve did on the bench, but when he muttered, “Fuck,” under his breath, she knew a child hadn’t simply fallen off a swing or been hit by a Frisbee.
“What’s going on?” Eve asked, slowly pushing to her feet.
Zane pulled the Beretta from the holster at his lower back. “We’re about to have company.”
“Who?” Eve asked, reaching for her weapon. From the corner of her eye she saw Carter and Natalie do the same.
Zane shot her a we’re fucked look over his shoulder. “Your friends from the warehouse.”
Landon stared at the small, well-kept two-story home on a quiet street in the Fremont district of Seattle. The lawn was neatly mowed, the fence was freshly painted, and the iron chairs on the wide front porch were decked out with new seat cushions.
Not your typical safe house. Then again, that didn’t mean it wasn’t the right place. Every curtain was closed tight, blocking the inside from view, and the fence was taller than your standard six-foot fare, reminding him of that house in Cleveland where those three women had been held captive by a monster for years on end.
His stomach tightened as he sat in the shade of an oak tree and watched the house. When not a single person came or went in an hour, he decided to take a closer look.
His mind drifted to Olivia Wolfe as he crossed the street, and he couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking. What she was feeling. Fear and trauma weren’t things that could be measured in time. Whether it was a day, a week, or ten years, a person’s life could be changed forever by one single moment. He knew that better than most because usually he was the cause.
He shifted the backpack hanging off one shoulder, climbed t
he front porch, pulled back the screen, and knocked. It was ballsy, but he wanted to know what he was up against before he went in, guns blazing.
Seconds ticked by, and no one answered. He knocked again. Waited. When still no one answered, he stepped back off the porch and looked up at the second story.
That fucker in Cleveland had left those women chained in their rooms when he’d gone out. Landon tugged the backpack over his other shoulder, glanced toward the fence, and then made his way around the side of the house.
The possibility that there could be guard dogs flickered through his mind, but he pushed the thought aside and quickly scaled the ten-foot metal fence. Dropping to his feet, he eyed the elaborate combination locking mechanism on the inside, then pulled the SIG from his lower back. Someone definitely wanted to keep something or someone inside this place.
He moved quietly through the backyard. Trees rimmed the lawn, blocking the view from other houses. A patio void of furniture led to three small steps and a back door. One look at the wires in the corner of the window told him there was a security system in place.
Landon glanced toward the upstairs windows, looking for any crack or opening. All the windows looked closed, but that didn’t mean there was no point of entry.
Choosing the closest tree, he climbed until he could access the roof of the garage. Balancing on the steep grade, he made his way across the roof toward the upstairs window he’d targeted below.
Like the door downstairs, there was a magnetic sensor, but it would be triggered only when the window was opened, not broken. Landon tugged on a pair of gloves from the backpack, then pulled out a folded piece of tinfoil he’d brought for this very reason. Using his elbow, he broke the window in the top right corner.
Pain echoed down his arm, but the long-sleeved Henley protected him from the broken glass. After unfolding the tinfoil, he carefully slid it inside the window and down between the magnetic sensors. Confident it was in place, he reached through the hole in the window and flipped the window lock on the top of the pane.