A Kiss to Kill (2 page)

For Alex and Kick, the mission was one of pure revenge. God help van Halen when the two of them got hold of him.

And they would. That was a goddamn fucking promise.

Kick finally opened the SUV’s door and got in. “Quinn called a meeting,” he said. “He wants us back at HQ, ASAP.”

“What about the Cappozi place?” Alex asked, glancing uneasily at the three-story brownstone before hesitantly reaching for the vehicle’s ignition. “What if I’m
not
being paranoid and—”

“Johnson has her six on the subway. And they’re bringing in Miles to finish your shift here,” Kick told him. “She’ll be in good hands until Marc and Tara take over their regular watch at nine tonight.”

Alex pushed out a breath. “All right.” He checked the dashboard clock. It was just after five. “I guess that works.”

Kick raised a brow as he put the SUV in gear. “You good to drive, bro?”

Alex gave a humorless chuckle. “Worried about my mental health?”

“Hell, yeah. I need to stay alive. Newlywed and all, remember?”

“Like I could forget,” he muttered with a wry curl of his lip. Kick had been relentlessly happy since tying the knot. Not that Alex begrudged his friend. He was glad
one
of them was happy, at least.

He gunned the engine to life. “And damn, Kick. In case you hadn’t noticed,
every
one behind the wheel in this town is a fucking lunatic. Trust me, I’ll blend right in.”

GREGG
van Halen followed Gina Cappozi onto the subway car at the last possible second, making sure she didn’t dart out again just before the doors closed.

She didn’t. Didn’t even try.

Not that it surprised him. For the past week, since returning home to Manhattan after her lengthy convalescence upstate, his lover had done nothing to avoid being found. Nothing to escape the menace that lurked in the corners of the darkness, seeking to hunt her down.

It was almost like she was taunting him. Or fate. Except for the occasional furtive, hollow-eyed glances she gave her surroundings, you’d never know she was in a constant state of terror.

Avoiding the vigilant observation of the STORM agent tailing her, Gregg casually grabbed the center pole of the subway car along with the horde of commuters anxious to get home for the night. The sliding doors slammed shut and the wheels lurched forward with the distinctive rattle and squeal of the New York subway.

He turned his back on Gina. He didn’t need to face her. In fact, he preferred watching her in the flickering reflection of the grimy window. Better to keep the rage from showing in his face and giving him away.

Her dark green eyes went to and fro as she clung to an overhead strap, her gaze alighting for a quick perusal of each passenger before shifting to the next. Always moving. Always searching.

For him
.

He allowed himself a grim inward smile.
So nice to be wanted
.

She’d never see him, though. Yeah, she’d see a man, a tall man, his head and shoulders obscured by a baggy hoodie. But not
him
, not Gregg van Halen. Not until he chose to show himself. Which he wouldn’t. Not with those STORM clowns following her every move. But he could be patient when he needed to be.

Gregg had been invisible for so much of his life, it took no effort at all to remain so. Even in plain sight, in broad daylight, he was a true shadow-dweller. A ghost.

A spook
.

His lips flicked up. An apt description. For it went far deeper than his job. The shadows themselves drew him. Dark obscurity spoke to him. Even now, it whispered in his ear, beckoned to him from the pitch-black void just beyond the strobing flash of the subway window where he watched his own reflection, and that of his woman.

Alas, he could not answer the call and slip back into the void. There was something he must do before returning to the sheltering comfort of anonymity. He must deal with the overwhelming wrath in his heart. And take care of this woman. His lover.

In the mirrored film noir frames of the moving window, he searched her face for any sign of recognition. Or of alarm. And found none. Her eyes passed quickly over him.

But within himself, crouching right next to the anger that simmered and roiled in his chest, he felt a bone-deep physical recognition of her. And had a sudden, overwhelming need to put his hands on her. A need so potent and visceral it nearly sucked the breath from him.

He
knew
this woman, intimately. Knew her flesh and her fears. He had plunged deep inside her and felt her quake with the pleasure his presence there had brought her. And had felt her tremble with the fear of his absolute power over her.

He wanted to feel her quake and tremble again.

But she would never allow it. Never accept him again as she once had.

Because he had betrayed her.

He had betrayed everything.

He battled back a surge of sick fury. Steeled his insides and beat back the clot of unwanted emotion. Anger would not help. Emotions would not help. Only action would.

As the train screeched around a curve, he released the pole, letting his body wedge into the clutch of commuters surrounding her. No need to hold on. His balance was perfect, honed through years of hard physicality on his job as a mercenary for Uncle. Bit by bit, inch by inch, he eased closer to her—the backward bump always accidental, the sideways step seemingly unintentional. Until his back was at her front. Not quite touching.

But oh so close.

Close enough to catch the familiar, tempting scent of the woman he’d once tied to his bed and taken in ways that had both thrilled her . . . and frightened her to the marrow.

He’d always frightened her. From their first wary, agenda-filled meeting, he’d scared the pants off her. Literally and figuratively. It was part of his attraction. And hers. She had once loved the edgy thrill of it. But now . . . she hated him. Hated him with a depth that nearly matched his own.

While she’d been at the sanatorium up north, from hidden vantage points on the grounds he had watched her body slowly heal from the terrible trauma she’d gone through. But in her mind the terror still loomed as large as when she’d been a captive of al Sayika. She’d learned to defend herself, studying deadly moves, plunging her knife into the center of a man-shaped target over and over. Imagining it to be his own black heart, he was sure.

During the months he’d observed her and covertly listened in on her debriefs and conversations via the device he’d planted in her room at Haven Oaks, one thing had become abundantly clear: Gina Cappozi wanted him dead. And
she
wanted to be the one to kill him.

Too bad he couldn’t let that happen.

The train sliced through the black tunnel, lights flashing to the cacophony of the steel rails. He cocked his head to the side and inhaled, picking out his lover’s unique fragrance from the potent olfactory brew of refuse, burning brakes, and the perfumed sweat of a thousand bodies.

She glanced around uneasily. Nervous. Instinctively sensing a predator close by.

Impassively, he read an ad sign hanging on the wall, keeping his face hidden. She anxiously caught the eye of the STORM agent across the car from her, who shook his head reassuringly. She shuddered out a breath and tightened her grip on the strap above her again as wheels screamed and the train pulled to a herky-jerky stop at the next station.

Passengers all around disgorged, jostling them so her body was wrenched away from his. New people crowded around. He steered closer. The doors slammed shut again.

Heedless to the danger, he turned and deliberately stepped up right behind her, this time his front to her back. She was tall, especially in her work heels, but he was taller. Much taller. Heartbeat accelerating, he spread his feet and grabbed the strap next to hers.

He hovered over her.
Close. So close
. Silky strands of her long black hair tickled his nose . . . smelling of the woman he had stripped naked and taught to pleasure him as no other woman ever had.

His body remembered those nights. Achingly well. He could still hear the echoes of her groaned sighs and throaty moans as he took her. Could still feel the touch of her fingers and the tip of her tongue as she explored his body to their mutual, shivering delight.

His cock grew thick and hard, remembering.

Again the brakes squealed, the car slowed; people shifted in readiness to exit.

He nearly vibrated with the urge to touch her. To step into her. To press his body right up against hers and feel her succulent curves fitted against his unyielding muscle. Just for a fleeting moment.

But he didn’t dare.

She must have felt the air around them quicken. Must have sensed the taut, electric thrum of lust, which pulsed through his whole body for want of her. Must have inhaled his eager male pheromones as they sought a way to lure her to his bed again. Suddenly, she went rigid. Her knuckles turned white on the strap she clung to. Her head whipped around and she raked his features with a fear-sharpened glare.

But he had already looked away. Averted his hooded face so she couldn’t see the hunger prowling in it like a trapped tiger. Or read the intent lying there, in wait. Waiting for the right moment.

To take her
.

The train jerked to a halt and she stumbled backward into him. She gasped. He didn’t move. But she felt it—the long, thick ridge that the memories had raised between his thighs. Her breath sucked in. Her hand dropped. To touch him?

He knew better. She was reaching for her knife.

But too late.
He was already out the door.
It wasn’t time
. Not quite yet.
But soon he would have her.
Very soon
.

TWO

THE
rest of the team was waiting for Alex and Kick in the penthouse of the classy Park Avenue hotel they were using as their Manhattan base of operations.

One thing about STORM Corps, they didn’t scrimp on amenities for their operators. STORM Commander Kurt Bridger always said as long as the team was INCONUS—inside the United States—they should be enjoying life’s luxuries. Because you never knew what fetid armpit of the world they’d be sent to tomorrow, expected to lay down their lives for the client. Nice digs were the least the company could do in return, Bridger said.

Alex had become all too familiar with fetid armpits during his dozen years with Zero Unit—not to mention his sixteen long months at al Sayika’s Club Torture. Even now, he’d sometimes wake up as the sun peeked over the horizon and find himself shivering on the cold marble floor of some gilded hallway or crammed into the deepest, darkest corner of a closet in whichever lavish rooms he was occupying, stinking of fear.

Old habits died hard. Especially when they’d been formed at gunpoint. Or worse.

But on the nights he actually remained in his bed, it was nice to wake at dawn, nose-deep in feathered comfort, five-hundred-count cotton soothing the savage itch of his still-tender scars. So, yeah. Alex appreciated STORM’s generosity more than he could say.

This evening, the penthouse serving as the Cappozi op HQ carried the scent of old roses, sweet coffee, and . . . lasagna? In the white stone foyer, Alex paused for a second to inhale the welcoming scents before following Kick into the suite. They headed for the situation room—the kitchen—where Bobby Lee Quinn always held his team meetings.

Quinn was the op leader this go-round. He’d recently been promoted out of the field onto STORM Command, but because he’d led the ground team that had rescued Dr. Cappozi four months ago in Louisiana, at his request Bridger had reassembled most of that team and put Quinn back in charge of it. Alex had heard all about the Louisiana op from Kick, who’d been an integral part of it, and from Dr. Cappozi herself. Despite some major setbacks, the team had successfully saved the hostage, foiled a biological attack on U.S. soil, and shut down the entire al Sayika sleeper cell that had kidnapped her. The tangos were now all either dead or in jail.

Alex, of course, had been flat on his back at that time, recovering from his captivity and totally useless up at Haven Oaks, a STORM-owned sanatorium in central New York. Which was also where Gina Cappozi had gone to recuperate from her horrific experience, and where he’d gotten to know her.

It helped that she had met and trusted the people protecting her now—and that everyone on the team had a very personal stake in the outcome. Hell, Kick had even married Gina’s best friend, Rainie, who was now working as a nurse at Haven Oaks.

There were eight on the Cappozi protection detail, rotating in shifts: Kick Jackson, Commander Bobby Lee Quinn, Darcy Zimmerman, Marc Lafayette, and Tara Reeves, all of whom had been on the Louisiana op, plus Dez Johnson, Miles Cavanaugh, and Alex himself.

As he strode with Kick through the penthouse to the kitchen, Darcy Zimmerman, the team’s whiz of a computer specialist, glanced up. She was sitting at a polished wood desk covered by a conglomeration of high-tech monitors and towers. Darcy was tall, blond, and model-gorgeous. Oh, yeah, and she could kill you seven different ways before you even knew she’d moved.

She rose to tag along. “Hey guys. Anything new on the surveillance?” Darcy wasn’t on the watch team. Her assignment was to work her electronic magic and get a bead on the enemy through cyberspace.

“Same ole same ole,” Kick answered, thankfully keeping mute about the flashback incident. “But Alex still thinks Gina’s being followed by someone besides us.”

Darcy flicked Alex a glance. “See anyone today?” She actually took his paranoia seriously. Sweet.

He shook his head, torn between gratitude and embarrassment. “Just the usual demons.”

Darcy gave him a sympathetic smile, hooked her arm through his, and gave his cheek a sisterly peck as they entered the kitchen. “Don’t worry, Zane”—Darcy always addressed everyone by their last name—“it’ll all get better with time.”

“Hey!” Quinn feigned a protest at her intimate gesture. The commander and Darcy were an item. Well, more than an item, actually. They’d gotten engaged and moved in together a few months back.

She went into Quinn’s arms and they shared a soft kiss.
Not
a sisterly one. “You know I only love you, babe.”

Alex turned away with a grimace. Excuse him while he puked. Like it wasn’t bad enough with newlyweds Kick and Rainie mooning over each other every chance they got, via the phone or otherwise.

Alex
so
did not want to be reminded of love, or anything remotely close to it. Unfortunately, the affliction seemed to be epidemic on the team of late.

Kick caught his eye and gave him an impertinent wink.

Alex scowled back, pretending to have no idea what his friend was alluding to. Or rather,
who
. As fucking if.

Kick had been there through the whole sordid mess Alex laughingly referred to as his love life, since his return from captivity. Kick believed he had soured on women because his longtime fiancée, the perfect, flawless, Southern belle society deb Helena Middleton, had dumped his ass the day before their wedding, effectively leaving him at the altar. And by the way, yes, that would be the
same
fiancée who had reportedly remained faithful to Alex’s memory the
entire
sixteen months he’d been at Club Torture and presumed dead.

Alex snorted.
Soured?
Kick didn’t know the half of it.

Fuck, he didn’t know the
quarter
of it . . .

Not that Alex would ever tell. There were some things a gentleman just did not divulge about a lady, no matter how poorly he’d been treated. Nor how intensely relieved over her unexpected but welcome change of heart . . .

“Heard from Special Agent Haywood lately?” Kick asked him with a smart-ass glint in his eyes.

Special Agent Rebel Haywood
. The name hit Alex like a fucking jackboot in the teeth.

Followed closely by vivid images of the delectable Agent Haywood that still haunted him from countless captive dreams. His angel, he’d called her then, back when he’d been trapped in hell. Because at the time he’d had no memory of her name, or who she was. Or, for that matter, who
he
was. Those amazing dreams of Rebel Haywood had gotten him through much of the horror of his imprisonment.

His angel smiling. His angel teasing.

His angel
naked
.

Totally, wonderfully, titillatingly naked.

Pure fantasy, of course. In real life he’d never seen her naked. Ever. Not that he hadn’t
want
ed to. It was just all that other stuff that came with
being
naked he hadn’t ever wanted. Or rather, hadn’t ever wanted to deal with again. He’d learned his lesson on that score, thankyouverymuch. Which was how he’d landed in that huge marriage mess with Helena Middleton in the
first
place. And why, since meeting Rebel several years ago, he’d always avoided the uncomfortable knowledge that she’d been crushing on him the whole time.

Way too heavy for the old pre-capture Alex. He didn’t need or want the emotional responsibility for another human being’s happiness. Not with his job. Or all his other issues . . . He was gone half the time, in dangerous situations that could turn deadly at any given moment. And when he was INCONUS . . . well, let’s just say he wasn’t planning a family anytime soon.

Rebel Haywood was strictly picket fence material. She wanted a husband, kids, and Sunday barbeques. She’d hinted at it often enough. No. He could never have made a woman like her happy.

But what about the new Alex? Post-rescue?

True, being tortured for sixteen months changed a man’s perspective. And priorities. But some things never changed. Well, unless they got worse, of course.

Thank Jesus the pretense with Helena had come to a screeching halt. She was far better off without him, and she obviously knew it.

But the tempting Rebel Haywood and her enduring crush? God. What would he do if the opportunity to have her—really have her—ever presented itself? After experiencing the sweet torture of those dreams, he’d be a saint not to act on it. But as much as he wished it were otherwise, he could never be the man she wanted him to be. Hell,
needed
him to be. Not in the long term, anyway. Not in the happily-ever-after picket-fence-two-kids-and-a-dog sense she wanted with him. Not then. Not now.

So it was just as well that was no longer an option. She’d made sure of it by transferring to the FBI field office in Norfolk, Virginia.

Oh, yeah. And by fucking her brains out with some other guy.

Alex ground his teeth.
His own damn fault
. Yeah, and Helena’s—but thankfully, that whole screwed up relationship was over and done now. And so was he. With women. Christopher Alexander Zane had learned his lesson. Yes, indeed.

Kick winked again. Alex ground his teeth harder. All right, fine. Maybe Kick
did
know the half of it.

He sent his friend a warning growl.
Drop it, dawg
.

Unperturbed, Kick chuckled, and went over to the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee.
Fucking joker
.

“Evenin’ all.” The greeting came from the doorway. Marc Lafayette yawned as he strolled into the kitchen with Tara Reeves tucked under his arm. Tara looked as fragile on the outside as Alex felt on the inside. She’d been through a monthlong hospital stay recently, also thanks to al Sayika. But unlike Alex, her outward appearance was deceptive. On the inside she was strong . . . thanks to the support of her new husband, Marc.

The pair looked like they’d just rolled out of bed. Which they no doubt had. Alex glanced at the clock. Almost 6:15 p.m.
Rise and shine
. Marc and Tara had the night shift surveillance.

Alex stifled a groan as they, too, kissed tenderly before accepting mugs of coffee from Kick.

Jesus, please, just take me now
. That flashback was looking better and better.

“Pass me one of those,” Alex grumbled, holding out his hand for a steaming mug, which Kick gave him along with an unrepentant grin. Alex gave
him
the finger, much to Kick’s amusement.

They all took seats around the large granite-topped table. Thankfully, Commander Quinn got right down to business by sliding a single page of computer printout onto the center of it.

“This is the communiqué NSA intercepted,” Quinn said. “The origin of the e-mail was somewhere in Washington, D.C. They believe it was sent out by al Sayika. What do y’all think?”

Somberly, everyone read it. If NSA was right, this was bad news. The next attack was coming faster than expected.

When the paper got to him, Alex skipped over the source logistics and just read the translation of the original short Arabic message.

Zero hour approaches! The garden of paradise beckons. The trigger will arrive tomorrow. Praise God and do His will!

As he read, Alex’s blood ran cold.

Normally he was a skeptic when it came to intelligence gathered from unsourced, intercepted e-mails. Hell, it could be some ten-year-old punk hacker in Poughkeepsie who’d sent it to his buddies as a joke. Even the zero-hour thing, a deliberate allusion to the infamous 9-11 chatter, was by now a cliché, used by every terrorist wannabe in the world. But Alex had to admit, this message had a certain ring of authenticity.

“Let’s assume NSA’s right and it is real,” Quinn began grimly. “Then it looks like their next target is D.C. Not terribly surprising. The question is—”

“—what is this trigger they’re talking about?” Alex finished.

Darcy gave voice to what they all were thinking. “A
nuclear
trigger?”

“Do these assholes never give up?”

Three months ago, the al Sayika cell that kidnapped Dr. Cappozi had attempted to release a horrific Armageddon virus in several U.S. cities, planning to kill millions of people in retaliation for one of their leaders being martyred in the Sudan. Quinn’s team had managed to stop the massacre in the nick of time.

“A dirty bomb?” Kick suggested.

A chorus of curses sounded around the table.

Quinn said, “NSA’s working on tracking down the e-mail’s exact place of origin within the District, and the FBI and CIA are digging into possible missing nuclear triggers around the world. State Department and Homeland Security have raised the national threat advisory level to red at all U.S. points of entry for the next forty-eight hours.
Everyone
coming into the entire country is going to be searched.”

Marc pointed to the e-mail’s text. “Any idea where this garden of paradise is?”

“Or
what
it is,” Tara amended. “I doubt al Sayika’s raising marigolds.”

Everyone made noises of agreement. Tara was new to special ops, but as a former cop she had good instincts.

“There is one possibility,” Commander Quinn said. “The Coast Guard got a tip about a yacht moored out in the Chesapeake Bay, called
Allah’s Paradise
. It’s been anchored there for a few days, though, so the timing isn’t exactly right.”

“Still.” Marc’s brows beetled. “The names are too similar to ignore. Who’s following up?”

“Coast Guard and FBI. A joint team will board the yacht tomorrow morning,” Quinn informed them.

“That’s it? No other clues?” Darcy asked. “E-mails? Wire-taps? Kidnappings?”

“A marked increase in chatter, nothing more specific than this,” Quinn said. “But NSA believes the threat is real. They’ve been monitoring al Sayika closely since December, when we took down the Abbas Tawhid cell in Louisiana.”

Alex’s body instinctively recoiled at the hated name. Tawhid had been one of the two terrorist leaders personally responsible for his own suffering at Club Torture. Tawhid had been a savage brute, and his co-leader’s nickname said it all: the Sultan of Pain. Alex still had screaming nightmares about both men.