They were both silent for a moment, unsure what this woman—a woman who obviously liked to know all—really did know about what was troubling Gabe.
“Well, he likes to work out,” Mal said after a beat.
“He never sleeps,” Poppy continued. “Never. His bed isn’t touched when I go to the house to clean, and I’ve seen him at night when I’m leaving the office late or coming in to open.” She pointed over her shoulder at one of the bungalows Gabe had told Mal was designated for the resort’s housekeeping business. “Something’s wrong with him.”
“He has a lot on his mind,” Chessie offered, as vague as Mal.
“He doesn’t eat, not one decent meal. Not my good Jamaican food and not that thick spaghetti all dripping in cheese your grandfather insists on making. I cook good food, you know, with none of that—”
“Okay, Poppy.” Chessie cut her off with a quick wave. “We’re going to talk to Gabe right now, and I’ll be sure he eats—”
“I’ve recycled far too many empty booze bottles from their trash.”
Leave it to Gabe to teach the housekeeper how to be a good spy. Mal put a hand on Chessie’s shoulder to guide her away. “Thanks for letting us know,” he said.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Chessie added.
The other woman shook her head. “Not fine, not at all. I hope you two can help him, because I’m worried he’s going to do something rash.”
“Rash?” Chessie stopped. “Like what?”
Poppy’s big brown eyes grew wide and scared. “I don’t know, but this change is so sudden. When I started working for him, he was, you know, funny and…happy. Now he’s…”
Grieving, Mal thought. “Thanks, Poppy,” he said quickly. “We’re here to help him, I promise.”
And that wasn’t a lie. If they found Gabe’s son, surely he’d climb out of his personal hellhole.
The maid gave a quick nod and pointed to the bungalow where Gabe and Nino lived. “Just go around the back and holler. He’ll have his ear things in and turned up to deafening, like he does when he beats the sweet stuffing out of that punching bag. You’d think that thing was made of the devil himself.”
“Thanks,” Chessie said with another quick hug of Poppy’s wide shoulders.
As they walked toward Gabe’s bungalow, she let out a deep sigh. “I don’t know what’s worse. Knowing my brother is in personal agony or not really understanding why.”
“I’ll tell you why,” Mal said. “He loved Isa.”
“Isa…” She said the nickname softly, her steps slowing.
“Your brother loved Isadora Winter like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Like nothing I thought…” Could even be possible.
She stopped completely then, taking that in. “I could tell when I found her name listed as deceased that he…he cared a lot.”
She didn’t need to know everything, but she needed to know this. “He loved her, Chessie. And he won’t admit it, or any weakness, but with Isa gone, he needs his son.”
Chessie nodded slowly, her expression in complete agreement with him. “First, we have to make sure the boy is his.”
And find out what happened to Isadora. “And we have to do that,” Mal said. “Or he’ll risk his life trying to do it himself.” He guided her down the narrow strip of grass that separated the bungalows.
They continued to the back of the house, coming around where a raised patio faced the expansive gardens of Casa Blanca. No sound came from the patio, and the heavy bag that had been jury-rigged to hang from a partial awning hung untouched.
Mal opened his mouth to call out Gabe’s name, but a soft sound stopped him. Chessie heard it, too, looking up with a question in her eyes. It sounded like…sniffing.
They took a few more steps, cautious and uncertain, because who in their right mind would sneak up on Gabe Rossi?
They heard it again. The distinct sound of…oh man.
Chessie put her hand over her mouth to hold back any sound, and Mal just closed his eyes. Someone was crying—hard.
They both froze at the sound, so utterly foreign. It was easy to think of Gabe as invincible, emotionless, fierce to the bone. But he’d lost a woman he loved deeply, and now likely had a child he had very little hope of claiming as his.
And Mal was about to ice that cake with a frosting of bad news. I slept with your sister, buddy.
Chessie gave her head a quick shake, her eyes communicating that she was thinking the same thing. They couldn’t do this. They couldn’t make his life worse or more complicated. And, despite their best efforts, he’d insist on a change in the plan, and that would just take more time to find out what he needed to know.
Mal pulled Chessie back into the yard next to the house. “We can get in and out of Cuba fast and clean.”
She nodded. “We’ll find that boy, get the DNA, and be home in two days.”
That may or may not be true, but he loved her optimism. They looked at each other, making a mutual, silent, absolutely correct decision. They weren’t telling Gabe a thing.
Turning, they started to hustle back to the street, picking up speed just to get away from the stomach-wrenching sound of Gabe having a horrible private moment.
Just as they reached the front of the house, the full weight of a man pounced on Mal’s back, smacking him to the ground with one smooth move and taking Chessie down with him.
Mal whipped around to meet a gaze that was hard as nails and mad as hell.
Chapter Nine
“Lila Wickham is here to see you, Mr. Drummand.”
Roger Drummand stared at his assistant, hoping like hell the blood draining from his face wasn’t visible to her. His assistant was no trained agent, of course, but she was sharper than the last one, which was never a good thing when you were hiding as much as he was.
He’d learned that the hard way…when Lila Wickham entered his organization.
“I’ll be right with her,” he said, shuffling the report he’d been reading. His gaze dropped to the picture of a young woman who shared eye and hair color with one of his most annoying, aggravating, and, damn it, talented former consultants. He couldn’t tell if Francesca Rossi, who apparently had brilliant computer skills, also had her brother’s aptitude in the field. But it was a safe bet annoying arrogance was embedded in their genes.
He flipped to the next shot, this one of this younger female Rossi toasting a brew at an airport bar, laughing, flirting, smiling at Malcolm Harris like the son of a bitch hung the moon. Why?
The report said they appeared to meet by accident, stayed in the same hotel after mass flight cancellations due to storms, and fucked their ever-loving brains out until Harris blew out in the middle of the night.
They’d lost him then. But the woman rented a car and headed south to Florida, where Roger happened to know Gabriel Rossi had moved to work for a private security firm. Or so he said.
“Roger.” Lila closed the door behind her with a solid click, entered the office with an air of ownership, and took the guest chair, not waiting for an invitation.
“Ms. Wickham,” he replied, purposely reminding her of her incredible lack of respect toward a CIA supervisor.
She angled her head and crossed her arms. “There was no money transferred to my account,” she said, her British accent clipping each word. “Tuesday was your deadline.”
He met her deep-brown gaze, enhanced by expertly applied makeup and a fringe of lashes so thick they had to be fake. A shocking contrast to her eyes, her hair was nearly platinum, always stick-straight and loose over her shoulders. The color accentuated olive-toned skin and angular, stark features. Her nose had a bump that would be a flaw on anyone else, but somehow gave her an air of a noble patrician, and her teeth were so white and perfect they reminded him of a toothpaste commercial.
He didn’t consider her a beautiful woman, but certainly an arresting one. And a cold one. So icy a man’s dick would turn into a Popsicle if it found its way inside her.
Cold and cal
culating, as she’d proven when she’d cornered him with her suspicions about his secret activities and private reports. That’s when Lila Wickham went from low-level MI6 agent brought over from London to work on a joint task force to Roger Drummand’s personal nightmare.
“I need some more time.” He looked down at the files, hoping she’d take it as a dismissal, but of course he didn’t call the shots with her. The balance of power had completely shifted to her when she uncovered what he’d so desperately tried to hide.
“Well, you don’t have much. I’ve got an appointment with your father, and I think it’s time to share some of my thoughts about a certain rogue program that never really died.” She looked down and casually brushed one of her black-painted fingernails. “He’d be very interested in the idea of taking hardened, deadly terrorists and calling them ‘ancillary agents’ and placing them in key locations in the United States on the off chance they identify cells.”
“If such a program existed,” he said pointedly, banking on the fact that she, so far, hadn’t shown him actual proof of his activities. “And if it worked, yes, my father and the entire agency would be quite happy to take the credit for stopping a terrorist attack on US soil.”
She gave a chilling smile. “But if one of those terrorists-turned-spies were to, say, go missing and stop reporting and decide to walk through a mall or a packed stadium wearing a bomb, then the world, and William Drummand, would not be so proud of our, or your, secret program. Would they, Roger?”
“That’s not going to happen.” He hoped.
She inched forward. “Just in case it does, you will buy my silence.”
Paying her one dime was tantamount to admitting he really did run this rogue program that no one knew about. He kicked back, purposely putting his shoes on the desk in a defiant act of swagger. “Going to see my old man, are you? Don’t forget to genuflect.”
She barely shrugged. “Well, you know his fascination with British intelligence. He’s become rather fond of our visits.” She gave a dry smile as if she knew how much it bothered him that she was invited to visit the elder Drummand, and not his own son. “He always asks about you. And I always tell him you’re doing the most important work at the agency.”
Fear, loathing, and disgust rolled around in his belly. He was doing nothing at the agency. What he was doing was far, far outside the auspices of the CIA, and it was very important work. Very important.
The fact that this bitch figured it out and threatened to expose the program made him want to kill her. But he didn’t dare. Instead, she’d get what she wanted, which, like any soulless person, was money.
“I honestly don’t have the amount you want.”
She lifted a brow. “Then get it.”
He swallowed hard. She had no weaknesses and a computer for a brain. A dangerous combination.
His gaze returned to the report on his desk. There was a good reason he kept track of Malcolm Harris. If that man decided to dig deep or go back to Cuba or have an in-depth conversation with his old pal Alana Cevallos, Roger’s world could crumble.
But there was money…and if anyone could access it, it would be Malcolm Harris.
“Mr. Drummand?” she prodded.
He puffed out a breath and pushed the report to her. “Maybe you could help.”
She looked disgusted. “That’s not generally how this works.”
“You want the money or not?” he shot back. “Find out where former agent Malcolm Harris is.”
Her eyes flickered. “The embezzler from Gitmo? The one that earned you a juicy promotion after you discovered what he was doing?”
“The same.” He gestured toward the report. “If you can find him for me, I might be able to get your money.”
She scanned the page. “Who’s the woman he was with before he disappeared?”
“Gabriel Rossi’s sister, who continued on to the resort where Rossi works now.”
She kept her eyes down, reading.
“You’ve heard of Rossi, right?” he asked. Lila may have come from MI6, but anyone who’d been around any international intelligence knew of Gabe Rossi, famed consultant and renowned bad boy highly regarded among the female agents.
She shook her head, already on the third page of the report. Speed-reader, of course. “Name means nothing to me, but I know about Mal Harris. Looks like he’s quite adept at making himself unfollowable after his little tryst at the airport hotel.”
“I had good people on him, too.” He didn’t know why he felt the need to defend himself to this little blackmailer. “My agent pulled some slick shit to get into the hotel room while Mal hung out in the lobby with the woman. I have good people.”
“Not that good.” She flipped the page. “They lost him.”
“But not the girl, and the girl leads to her brother, and her brother…”
She lifted her gaze. “Her brother what?”
“Is a pain in the ass.”
The faintest flicker of what might be humor hidden deep in the heart of a hardened woman passed over her expression. “Sure. I’ll go to a lush resort on your dime, Roger. I’ll see what I can find out.” She leaned forward and speared him with a look. “And I’ll be back in time to meet with your daddy. He’s still big and strong, but that ninety-year-old heart might not endure a shock like finding out his son made the front page of The New York Times for his role in placing terrorists in our country and calling it a CIA program.”
Nausea threatened. “You have no proof of that.”
She closed the file. “You sure would blacken the Drummand name.”
It was a bluff, wasn’t it? Sweat stung under his armpits. How the hell had he gotten into this situation, and how was he going to get out? Mal…and the money.
She stood. “I’ll call you from the beach.”
Relief at the reprieve seeped through him. “Watch your step around Rossi,” he warned, trying to sound much cooler than he felt. “He can smell an agent from a mile away.”
Her mouth tipped up, as if the challenge turned her on. “He won’t smell me.”
* * *
Chessie rolled away, but Gabe kept Mal pinned to the ground. “I heard you,” Gabe ground out the words through clenched teeth.
“Get off me!” Mal shoved hard, forcing Gabe to vault to his feet.
“You need to tell me and tell me now what the fuck is going on.” Gabe turned his gaze—his awfully damned dry-eyed gaze—to Chessie, who scooted back more from the force of his look than any real fear.
“We were…working out the details of our cover story,” she said.
Gabe pierced her with a look of distrust she’d known her whole life. For all his bravado and jokes and bad words and big heart, her brother didn’t trust anyone. And for good reason, in this case.
“Who’s following you?” he demanded.
Chessie almost laughed. “Damn, you’re good.”
“Good enough to hear you guys nattering up with the housekeeper and then whispering like a couple of teenage girls ten feet from where I was. And good enough to laugh my ass off at you two thinking I’m crying when I’m doing my last set of dead lifts.” He jerked around to Mal, who was getting to his feet. “Good enough to know you’re hiding something very important from me.”
Chessie could have kicked herself. Of course he hadn’t been crying. This was Gabe.
“Who the fuckity fuck is following you, Harris?” he demanded.
Mal stared at him, then reached into his pocket and pulled out the bug, turning it over in his palm. “I don’t know, but Chessie found this.”
Gabe took it, frowning. “Where was it, and why the hell weren’t you going to tell me?” Gabe demanded.
Chessie took a shallow inhale, the sun beating down almost as furiously as Gabe’s relentless fury. Which was only going to get worse. “It was in a hotel room in Atlanta.”
“Whose?”
“Mine,” Mal said.
“Then how did she…” He let out a breath. “Fuck.”
/>
Neither Mal nor Chessie spoke, letting Gabe’s razor-sharp brain put the puzzle pieces together and come up with a picture of how he’d kill them both.
“I planned to help you find another way to handle your mission without involving Chessie,” Mal finally said.
“Why?” Gabe asked. “Conflict of interest?”
Mal didn’t respond for a second, and Chessie waited for the expected answer. I thought you’d kill me. “I thought I’d somehow let you down. Even unknowingly. And I never want to do that.”
Chessie’s heart slipped a little, hearing it wasn’t Gabe’s wrath he was afraid of, but something that seemed more honorable.
Gabe turned away, no sign of any anguish in his expression, just that look of a raw, ingrained protective streak that had smothered Chessie for most of her life. And protected her, she admitted. But right now? It smothered. Right now, she wanted to breathe and not be watched or judged or saved from her own mistakes.
She took a step forward. “Gabe, listen to me.”
“I don’t want to hear a word you have to say.”
“Well, you’re going to anyway,” she fired back, scooping up a heaping dose of righteous indignation. “I’m thirty years old, damn it, and a grown woman whether you like it or not.” When he didn’t reply, she forced herself into his averted gaze. “I met a guy I had no idea you knew. He was hot and nice and funny, and we were stranded in a hotel overnight.”
Gabe blinked at her, stunned into uncharacteristic speechlessness.
“Look, we talked and had a beer and…” She glanced at Mal. “The attraction was mutual,” she continued. “We ended up in his room. I went there on my own, to be honest. I liked him and he liked me and…” She stopped long enough to take a breath, barely aware that her pulse was slamming now, her chest tight, and that Mal had come to stand next to her. That silent support egged her on. “And guess what, Gabe? It was great. Best sex of my life.”