Alec's Royal Assignment (Man On A Mission Book 3) (18 page)

Angelina was right. The king was right. Vigilante justice—so tempting, so enticing, especially in this case—wasn’t the way to go. They had to take Vishenko down, but legally. Publicly. They had to put him away for life, making sure life meant
life.

Which meant Alec had no choice. Despite what she’d been through, despite what she’d survived, despite his protective instincts kicking in and wanting him to take Caterina someplace far away where she’d never have to be afraid again, he had to convince her to testify against Vishenko. Had to somehow get through to Caterina that her evidence and her testimony were crucial to putting Vishenko away so he could never do to anyone else what he’d done to her.

Somehow.

* * *

Cate lay back against the pillows, physically and emotionally exhausted. She’d been running on adrenaline ever since she’d been brought here, and she had no reserves of physical energy left.

But it was the emotional drain that had really done her in. Telling her story—haltingly at first, then gaining momentum when neither Angelina nor Alec seemed to judge her—had brought every detail back. Details she’d hidden away from herself, just as she’d hidden away the evidence she’d stolen from Vishenko when she escaped. Details she’d sworn she’d never remember.

And yet...now she had. The memories her brain had successfully blanked out for years had returned to her as if they’d happened yesterday. And as she recounted them, she relived them. Every single one.

But she hadn’t cried—she’d sworn more than eight years ago she’d never cry again, and she hadn’t. Neither had Angelina. Oddly, it was Alec whose eyes grew damp as her story unfolded, Alec whose throat had worked as if he was fighting emotions he didn’t know how to handle. As if he suffered as he learned the horror she’d lived through. As if he would have taken her pain if he could.

Such a good man. The kind of man she’d dreamed of all those years ago back when she’d still dreamed. But she wasn’t blind. Alec loved Angelina. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice when he said her cousin’s name. And Angelina loved him. Not quite as openly—Angelina had never been demonstrative that way—but it was obvious to someone who knew her as well as Caterina did. The years had fallen away, as if they’d never been apart. While a small part of her was envious of her cousin, most of her rejoiced. Angelina was so
good
! She always had been. She’d been the older sister Cate had looked up to. Adored. Wanted to emulate. She deserved a man like Alec.

Cate glanced up when Angelina reentered the room, followed by Alec. She didn’t know why it was, but telling Alec her story had been easier than telling Angelina. She’d looked at his face more often than her cousin’s as she’d confessed everything that had happened. Everything she’d done. Maybe because Alec hadn’t known her before, hadn’t loved her before, as her cousin had once loved her and—as impossible as it seemed—loved her still, despite the shame Cate had brought to their family. Despite knowing the truth. All of it.

Angelina crossed the room, leaned over and kissed Cate on the cheek and then gently cradled Cate’s face in her strong hands. In Zakharan, she said softly, “Alec needs to talk to you,
dernya.
Alone. Is that okay?”

Cate blinked and caught her breath at Angelina’s pet name for her, a nickname from her childhood that meant
little treasure.
No one had called her that in more than eight years. She’d been no one’s treasure since she’d left Zakhar.

She nodded quickly, agreeing before she could change her mind. Angelina turned to gaze at Alec, and Cate could see the question in her cousin’s eyes—a question that was silently answered by the tall man who somehow had won Angelina’s heart. That meant he
had
to be a good man. Angelina wouldn’t love him if he wasn’t.

Then Angelina kissed Cate one more time and left the room.

* * *

Alec stood by the window gazing out into the gathering darkness, watching the snow fall in a blanket of white, as he marshaled his thoughts. For a moment he wished he hadn’t asked Angelina to leave. Maybe it would be easier with her there. But then he knew he’d been right to insist on doing this himself. Angelina was too close to her cousin. Too attached. She couldn’t be objective, not on something like this, despite being able to listen calmly, quietly, to Caterina’s story—
Cate
’s
story, he reminded himself. Angelina’s cousin had told them she went by Cate now, and he had to remember that.

But without Angelina’s assistance, that meant it was all on him to figure out what to say to a woman who’d been to hell and back to convince her she needed to go back into hell.

Cate made it easy for him. “It is best to just say it, straight out, whatever it is.”

Despite everything, Alec couldn’t help laughing softly. “You sound just like Angelina,” he told her, unexpected humor lightening the heavy burden on his heart as he paid her the highest compliment in his book.
And that’s the key,
he realized suddenly. The key to the woman Cate was, the way to reach her. Despite her waiflike appearance, she was strong inside, where it counted. Just like Angelina. Determined not to crumble where a lesser woman would have. Tough enough to survive the hell she’d survived and fight her way out. Hadn’t he told McKinnon Angelina would testify because it was the right thing to do, no matter the risk? And hadn’t he said,
If Caterina’s anything like her cousin, she’ll do it. She’ll testify
?

“I want the evidence you’ve got against Vishenko and everyone involved in the trafficking and prostitution ring,” he said straight out. Not harshly, but a demand. “Not just that—I want anything and everything you’ve got on Vishenko. And I want you to testify against him. Against them.”

She paled. “Why?” she asked through lips that barely parted enough to get that one word out.

Pain slashed through him, but Alec knew he couldn’t soften. Knew there was a time for gentleness and compassion. This wasn’t it. Cate didn’t need tenderness right now. She needed to remember how strong she really was. “Because you’re one,” he told her in no uncertain terms.

Her head tilted to one side, and her brows drew together in a question. “I don’t—”

“Edward Everett Hale wrote it more than a hundred years ago,” he said before she could finish. “My parents thought it was so important they made sure every one of their children understood the concept. ‘I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. And by the grace of God, I will.’”

He paused to let that sink in. “You’re one. Just as I am. Just as Angelina is. All we can do is the best we can do. Each time. Every time. And we can never give up. We
can’t.
Because if we give up, if we say, ‘Let someone else do it, let someone else take the risk,’ then people like Vishenko win.
Not
because they’re smarter than us, or better than us, but because they can make us afraid. Because we
let
them make us afraid.”

“I
am
afraid,” she said faintly. “Why me? Why do I have to testify?” She stumbled over her words in her haste to explain. “When...when you left the room, Angelina told me that even if Vishenko never faces justice here in the US, he will be tried in Zakhar for attempting to kill the crown prince. One of the men he hired has already confessed. So you don’t need me to put him away—he will end his days in a Zakharian prison.”

Alec shook his head again, wondering what else he could say to convince her she was strong enough to do this. “It’s not just Vishenko. If it was, you’d be right, but it’s not. We have to bring
all
the men in the conspiracy to justice—from the men who lured the Zakharian women with false promises, to the men at the US embassy who provided the fraudulent work visas for the trafficked women, to the men from the
Bratva
who forced the women into prostitution. We can’t do it without you.”

She drew a sharp, shuddering breath and gazed at him from wounded eyes. “But
he
will be there,” she whispered, almost in despair.

“So will I,” he promised her. “So will Angelina. We’ll be there. You can’t let him win—not this time. Not ever again.” He reached down and touched a finger to the scar on one of her wrists. “You fought him before, Cate—this proves it. Fight him now with everything in you. We’ll help you. Your cousin and I will do everything we can to help you.”

His jaw tightened, and he knew in his heart of hearts he had only one final argument to put forth. If it didn’t work, if he couldn’t convince her... He held her gaze with his intent one. “If I could fight this battle for you, I would,” he said, meaning every word. “But I can’t. Only you can do it. Only you can stand up to the evil these men represent and say, ‘This stops here. This stops
now
!’”

She bent over, covering her eyes with the heels of her hands. At first he thought she was crying as she dragged one ragged breath after another into her body, and his resolution was shaken.
How the hell can I ask her to do this after what she’s been through?
he thought.
And how the hell can I judge her if she refuses?

But when she finally raised her face to his, her eyes were dry. Dry, but with a determined light in them that reminded him poignantly of Angelina. “You’re right,” she said. “‘I am only one, but I am one.’ I will testify. And I’ll give you all the evidence I have. I’ve kept it hidden for six years, thinking someday I might find the courage to use it against him.”

Cate glanced down at her hands for a moment, at the scars on her wrists, and her mouth trembled. But then her lips tightened into a firm line. She breathed deeply, and Alec watched as her slender, patrician hands formed into tightly clenched fists. Somehow he knew she was remembering—and fighting the fear that memory created. Then she looked up and beyond him at something only she could see. “Someday is today,” she whispered. Then her eyes met Alec’s—blue-gray eyes that were so like Angelina’s—dauntless courage reflected in their shining depths. “Someday is today.”

Chapter 18

F
ive weeks later, Alec stood at the window of his office in the embassy, hands in his pockets, staring out at nothing. Would they ever have all the answers?
Probably not,
he admitted to himself. You almost never got
all
the answers.

They still didn’t know who’d killed the king’s cousin. The investigation into his murder inside the prison was ongoing. The Zakharian police were relentless, and he knew they weren’t giving up anytime soon. The working theory was that Vishenko had ordered the hit. They just didn’t have any evidence. Not yet.

What they
had
found—and Alec couldn’t believe the Zakharian investigators at the time had missed it—wasn’t really evidence in Prince Nikolai Marianescu’s murder. But there
had
been a connection between the prince and Aleksandrov Vishenko dating back to the assassination attempts on the king and the woman who was now Zakhar’s queen. The prince had been arrested, tried and convicted without anyone knowing that Vishenko could very well have been involved in that plot. Even if he hadn’t played an active role, he’d probably given it his blessing. And if Prince Nikolai had succeeded in taking the throne, Vishenko would have owned him—something a career criminal at Vishenko’s level would have wanted.

Another thing they didn’t have all the answers for—not yet—was the connection between Vishenko and Sasha Tcholek. Angelina was adamant that Sasha just wasn’t the kind of man who was motivated solely by money. So there had to be something else involved—maybe some kind of blackmail involving his family, Angelina theorized—to make him turn traitor. That investigation was still ongoing, too.

And the four gunmen arrested in the sting at the safe house where Cate
hadn’t
been? They’d been Vishenko’s men, no question. The FBI had identified them as members of the
Bratva
, all with long criminal histories. But none of them were talking.
Surprise, surprise,
Alec thought cynically. Frustrating, but only to be expected, as all four had lawyered up immediately so they couldn’t even be questioned.

But that didn’t matter, because one slight woman with more courage than all the men who worked for Vishenko combined was going to bring him down and put him away for life. The joint DSS–agency task force was combing through the documents Cate had turned over, and they were dynamite.

Alec glanced at his watch and realized he was going to be late meeting Angelina for dinner if he didn’t get a move on. He had a table booked for six o’clock at Mischa’s—their restaurant—and he couldn’t be late, tonight of all nights.

Because tonight, after dinner, he was going to tell her. His conscience had been bugging him for weeks, practically since the day they returned from the States. But yesterday had been the final straw. Angelina had taken him to the royal cemetery, to the tomb of the first king and queen of Zakhar. He’d seen the movie,
King’s Ransom
, so he knew the story. He even knew the English translation of the Latin inscription carved on the tomb. But he hadn’t known just how much those words meant to Angelina until she’d whispered, “Two hearts as one, forever and a day.” Then she’d turned to gaze at him, her heart in her eyes. And his heart had shredded.

He could put off telling her for months, maybe even a year, until he was forced to tell her. Until the DSS transferred him someplace else. But he just couldn’t do that to her. He couldn’t pretend everything was fine. Angelina deserved better. She deserved to know
now
that they had no future. That for them there was no forever and a day. But he knew once he told her, her smile would fade. The light would go out of her eyes. And the light would go out of his world.

She’d understand. That was the damnable thing. She’d understand when he told her he couldn’t resign from the DSS because he needed to continue the fight for all the Cates out there. Just as she’d understand when he told her children weren’t an option—not for him. Not for them. Not under the circumstances.

You’re afraid to tell her. Just admit it.

Yeah, he was. Because he’d rather cut off his right hand—his shooting hand—than break her heart. But he
had
to tell her. He’d put it off long enough. And no matter what she decided—even if she chose to go with him when he was reassigned—their life together would never be the same. It couldn’t be.

* * *

Angelina stared at Alec in the soft, wintry moonlight. They’d walked after dinner, as they usually did. But instead of walking by the river, this time he’d shepherded her to this little park not far from her apartment. Then he’d sat her down on a park bench and told her.

Her world was crumbling, but the manners she’d had drummed into her since she was a little girl said a lady never made a scene. A
lady
was always circumspect, always in control of her emotions, no matter what.

“Say something, Angel.” The hard edge to Alec’s voice steadied her.

“What is there to say?” she said, fiercely glad her voice didn’t tremble. “You have made your decision without consulting me.”

His lips tightened. “I don’t have a choice, damn it!”

She forced a smile. “There is always a choice.” She tucked her hair behind one ear, struggling to hold back the chaos of emotions bubbling inside her. “I understand,” she said when she finally had herself under control. “You would not be the man I lo—” she chopped off what she’d started to say and replaced it with “—the man you are if you could choose otherwise.”

“You don’t understand,” he said with desperation. “I
can’t
resign. I thought I could—I was even making plans about what I could do for a living instead—but I can’t. Not even for you, Angel. My job is who I am. Just as your job is who you are.”

His breath made a white cloud in the cold air. “I know you said you’d give it up for me. To build a life with me when the time came. But we’re not just talking going to your fallback career in the law. You know that. Eventually I’d be transferred. How can I ask you to sacrifice everything? Your job? Your home? Your country? Yes, you love me. But do you love me that much? To give up
everything
?”

“We will never know, will we?” she asked softly. “You did not ask me.”

“Angel—”

“No,” she said, cutting him off. “You did not ask me.” She stood, calmly rewrapped her scarf securely around her throat and walked away, her head held high.

* * *

She walked for miles. Dazed, bewildered and bereft, she huddled inside the warmth of her coat, but the chill in the air was nothing compared to the ice embedded in her heart.

Alec loved her, but not enough. Not enough to sacrifice his career. That was all she could think of as she eventually found herself at the river and made her way along the river’s edge.
We jogged here,
she remembered when she came to a bend in the river. This was where she’d taken him by surprise and thrown him to the ground. Where he’d turned the tables on her so neatly. Where he’d kissed her for the first time.
You wanted him to kiss you,
she acknowledged.
You wanted him then, just as you want him now.

She’d been drawn to Alec from the beginning.
Why?
she asked herself now.
Why Alec, and no other man?

Because he understood her. Understood what motivated her. And loved those things in her she’d never believed a man could love in her. He loved those things in her
because he was the same way.
And she loved him for the same reasons he loved her. Because he could sacrifice what
he
wanted, what would make
him
happy, for a higher purpose.

Honor. Duty. Loyalty. Sacrifice.

Words that meant
everything
to them.

A quotation came to her from out of the blue, a line from a seventeenth-century poem by Richard Lovelace.
“I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more.”

A memory clicked into her mind suddenly, her telling Alec in the safe house,
“...men have been doing things like this to women for thousands of years and will continue to do so until good men—men like you—stand up and say, ‘This stops here!’”

And Alec’s heartfelt vow,
“I promise you, Angel, this stops here.”

She realized then that was exactly why Alec had made the choice he’d made. Because being the honorable man he was, he couldn’t refuse to answer the call of duty. He couldn’t
not
do whatever he could to make the world a better place, no matter the personal cost.

And he couldn’t ask her to sacrifice everything for him.
Not
because he didn’t love her enough, but because he did.

The question was, did she love him enough? Did she understand?
Truly
understand?

* * *

Alec stood watching the snow falling in a soft cloud outside his embassy office window and remembered how together, he and Angelina had confronted one of Vishenko’s henchmen in the Denver snowstorm. They hadn’t even had to discuss what to do; they’d operated on the same wavelength as only a team could before moving on to the real safe house where Cate had been taken.

Cate and all the women like her were counting on Alec to do everything in his power to stop men like Vishenko. How could he let those women down?

But at the same time he remembered the devastated expression in Angelina’s eyes a week ago as she said,
“You did not ask me.”
She’d tried to hide it from him, but he could read her. And though he’d never doubted himself before, never questioned his decisions, now he wondered,
Should
he have asked her?

The buzzer sounded and Alec moved to his desk to answer it. “Yes, Tahra?”

“If you don’t leave shortly, sir, you’ll be late for your appointment with the king.” He glanced at the clock on his desk and realized Tahra was right as usual. “I already ordered one of the embassy limos,” she continued. “It should be waiting downstairs for you in five minutes.”

“Thanks. I’ll head down in a minute.” He clicked off the speakerphone, but his hand stayed poised over the phone for a moment as he considered calling Angelina’s cell. Then he discarded that as a bad idea. She was working, and what would he say, anyway? That he’d been wrong not to ask her to sacrifice her world for him? That he’d been wrong not to sacrifice his honor for her?

As he rode down in the elevator, Alec wondered what this meeting with the king was all about. It couldn’t be related to the progress in the trafficking case—Alec and the ambassador had met with the king and his advisers the day before yesterday in their weekly status meeting. So it had to be something else. Try as he might, he couldn’t think of a reason for the unexpected phone call he’d received that morning from the king’s appointments secretary, asking for this meeting. But as an embassy diplomat, he could never refuse an invitation from a head of state.

* * *

Alec met King Andre Alexei IV in his private office, not one of the conference rooms they usually met in. He was politely shown into the large, airy room, and when the king rose to meet him, both the footman and the king’s bodyguard left them alone, something that had obviously been prearranged.

“Thank you for coming, Special Agent Jones,” the king began when they were both seated, but then he shook his head. “Need we be so formal? My sister calls you Alec. May I?”

“Please do, sir.”

The king smiled. “I am Andre to my friends, Alec. And I have a feeling we are going to become friends.”

“Sir?” Alec hadn’t been expecting this. Yes, they were close in age—the king was only a year or so younger than he was. But...he was a king. Not Alec’s king, but still. A king. A sovereign ruler of a sovereign nation. Even though the United States and its citizens were egalitarian, Alec had been trained in diplomacy. But nothing in his training had covered a situation like this.

“Assuming you are agreeable to a suggestion I will be making to you today,” the king clarified, “we will be seeing a lot of each other over the coming years. My sister speaks very highly of you, Alec, as does her husband—both hold you in affection as well as esteem. You might already know I value their opinions.”

Slight understatement,
Alec thought wryly,
especially where Princess Mara is concerned,
although he didn’t share that with the king.

“And then, of course,” the king continued without a pause, “there is what you have accomplished in such a relatively short time. All these things speak to your character. I would welcome the opportunity to add you to my small circle of friends.”

Alec drew a deep breath. “I would be honored, sir.”

“Andre,” the king insisted. “At least when we are in private.”

It went against his training, but Alec repeated, “Andre.”

The king laughed. “There, that was not so difficult, was it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Now to the issue at hand. If you have not already received a commendation from your superiors for a job well done, you will. I have formally expressed Zakhar’s sincere thanks in a letter to your president, a copy of which I have here.” He picked up an envelope embellished with the state seal of Zakhar, and handed it to Alec. “It thanks the United States—in particular you and Trace McKinnon— for rooting out the corruption in the US embassy in Drago, and for bringing an end to the human-trafficking ring operating between our countries. Above and beyond the call of duty. I believe those were the words I used to describe your actions, but you can read the letter yourself when you are alone.”

“Thank you, si—Andre,” Alec corrected himself quickly. “But I really don’t think I went above and beyond. I did what I had to do, that’s all. That’s all any man can do.”

The king merely smiled. “So,” he said pleasantly, “where do you go from here? I understand you have been posted all over the world. Other than your own country—and I truly believe every man loves his own country best—is there anyplace you have been posted that particularly appeals to you?”

“Not to sound as if I’m—”
sucking up
is what he’d been about to say, but he decided it really wasn’t appropriate “—trying to flatter you,” he settled for. “But Zakhar is far and away the most beautiful, the most peaceful place I’ve lived in the past eighteen years, except my home in Colorado. Recent events notwithstanding.”