Brazen (2 page)

Three

Nick

When Nick knocked, a man opened the motel room door. Mid-forties. Trim. Well-dressed. This, Nick presumed, was Ness, though he didn’t ask for an introduction when none was offered. The man escorted him in. Nick noticed a second possibility—a fifty-something guy with a slight paunch. Ness was management level, not a field agent, so the extra weight wouldn’t be an issue.

There was also a third person in the room. A woman. All Nick could see of her was her ass. He wasn’t complaining, though. It was a very nice ass, a perfectly-rounded curve under a pencil skirt as she bent over a table, writing. There were legs, too, even if they weren’t the first thing he noticed. Black nylons with seams running down shapely calves. Black heels, high enough to be sexy, but not impractically so. And there was hair, dark curling waves tumbling almost to the desk as she wrote.

The first man cleared his throat. Nick thought he’d been caught ogling, but the guy only seemed to be getting his colleague’s attention. The woman finished what she was doing, straightened and turned, and the view didn’t get any worse. She wasn’t young—maybe late thirties, and not classically beautiful, but it would have been almost a disappointment if she’d been twenty and gorgeous. This was far more interesting—a striking mature woman with the body of a Forties pinup.

She extended a hand and walked over. “Vanessa.”

It took a moment for him to make the connection. He’d been so certain of his contact’s gender, and he mentally kicked himself for his presumption.

“Ness?” he said.

She smiled. “Yes, but it’s only my code name. In person, it’s Vanessa, please.”

They shook hands.

“Normally these guys would give you a pat-down, but considering what you are, you don’t need a weapon to kill me. So I think we can skip that part.”

She dismissed the two men, and they left to stand guard outside. Vanessa waved Nick to a table with two chairs. He took one. As he sat, she flipped through a sheaf of pages.

“I’m sorry to call you away on such short notice,” she said. “But I was in town on business, and there’s been a break in your case. It seemed like a good opportunity for us to meet, rather than send another agent to update you.”

“Thank you.”

“You have been pleased with the agents I sent to update you, though, haven’t you?”

She continued flipping pages, gaze down, but there was a note in her voice that made Nick tense.

“I know they were pleased with you,” she said before he could answer. “
Very
pleased.”

Now Nick intentionally didn’t reply, waiting and gauging her voice, her posture.

Vanessa lowered herself into the remaining chair. “I’m wondering if there’s a specific type you’d like me to send next time, Mr. Sorrentino. Blonde? Redhead? Brunette?”

Shit.

She continued. “I debrief my agents after they meet a client. They don’t hold anything back. Whatever happened on a mission—or in a meeting—I hear about it.”

Nick straightened. “I don’t know what Jayne told you, but I can assure you, I did not take advantage—”

“Oh, I know. It was mutual. There’s no question of that. I’m just curious how I could send you two of my best, most
professional
agents, and you manage to have sex with both.”

“I didn’t have sex with Tina.”

“No?”

He tried not to squirm. “Technically, no. There was…intimacy. But she offered.”

Vanessa stared at him. “During a client information meeting? How does that work? She updates you on the case, then offers you a blow job?”

“There were a few steps in between.”

“I should hope so.”

The words sounded shocked, but her dark eyes glittered with barely contained laughter, leaving Nick feeling like a cheerleader who’s been caught screwing half the football team.

Nick cleared his throat. “If there was a complaint—”

“Far from it. Both agents are eager—very eager—to work with you again.”

“Then if I’ve broken some code of client conduct—”

“If you have, it wasn’t one you were informed of. There’s no issue with your behavior, Mr. Sorrentino.”

He met her gaze. “Then why are we having this conversation?”

She blinked. Silence fell, and now she was the one who looked uncomfortable, as if she’d been called out for gossiping about the cheerleader.

Nick continued. “If there is a problem with my behavior, I apologize. Either way, it will not happen again. Can we move onto my case?”

Another moment of silence. What did she expect? He was sure she found this all very amusing, but it wasn’t as if he was some lecher chasing her young and impressionable agents. Jayne and Tina were both very capable women on the far side of thirty. Women who knew what they wanted and weren’t afraid to go for it. What they’d wanted was him. With Jayne he’d been game. With Tina, her “offering” had been step one in her seduction plan and ultimately he’d chosen not to go any further. 

While Nick was accustomed to teasing in the Pack, this wasn’t good-natured ribbing about his sexual escapades from friends. It was mockery from a virtual stranger. His initial flare of interest froze solid, and some of that chill crept into his voice as he said, “May we proceed? I have a five o’clock meeting.”

Vanessa updated him on his case, the same sort of thing Jayne and Tina had done. With the agents, it’d been very casual. He’d certainly suggested a formal discussion in a formal atmosphere. But he’d also offered to talk over drinks, never being one to stand on ceremony, and that’s what they’d both elected to do. A quiet upscale bar, a few drinks, small talk mingled with business…a relaxed atmosphere that eventually led to Jayne’s room…and to Tina’s hands under the table, followed by Tina herself.

Nick kept this meeting coolly professional, and Vanessa followed suit. She told him what they’d been doing, and he asked questions. All business.

“The main reason I called you here is to tell you we’re following up on a rumor that Malcolm was spotted in Detroit,” Vanessa said. “We heard he’d made contact with a half-demon there, someone he’d worked with at the Nast Cabal.”

“And the reliability of this rumor, on a scale of one to ten?”

“Eight.”

Until now, Nick had been listening, but only half processing. The update had seemed like mere customer service, making sure the client knows you’re using his money well. There had been countless rumors over the last few months. Yet Vanessa had never deemed one worth more than a four.

“All right then,” Nick said, pushing his chair back. “Give me the details on this half-demon. Name. Bio. Address. I can be in Detroit tonight.”

“There’s no need for that. I’ve sent Tina. Once she has visual confirmation of Malcolm Danvers, she’ll report back.”

“That’s not what we agreed on. I said—”

“Yes, I know what you said, and I was told not to argue the point. I did not, however, agree to it. You hired us to find Malcolm Danvers. Once we have accomplished that, unequivocally, he’s all yours. But it’s our job to confirm it.”

“And as the client, I’m relieving you of that responsibility. I have the right—”

“No, I’m afraid you don’t, Mr. Sorrentino. The contract states that we will provide confirmation.”

Nick knew that. Before signing it, he’d said that proof wasn’t required—he only wanted a solid lead. “Ness” hadn’t argued in their e-mail exchanges, which he’d interpreted as informal agreement. 

Nick folded his hands on the table. “I am asking you to reconsider. I would insist, but I would prefer to ask. I’m sure Tina’s a good agent, but Malcolm is unlike anyone she’s ever met.”

“Tina has tracked a werewolf. Successfully. On a mission in Germany. That’s why she’s on this case. She’s well prepared.”

“For a
werewolf
. Not for Malcolm. He’ll be onto her before she gets visual confirmation. He was the best fighter in the North American Pack—”

“
Was.
Past tense. Very past. The man is eighty-five, Mr. Sorrentino. Yes, I know werewolves age slowly, but he’s an old man.”

“No, he’s not. The Nasts were experimenting with cryogenic freezing. Elena says he doesn’t look much older than Jeremy. So shave ten years for that. Shave another twenty off for a werewolf’s delayed aging.”

She leaned back, and he could tell she was mentally calling bullshit on the cryogenics. Just as Rhys had. The Nasts were denying it, and even among supernaturals, cryogenics was a little too Star Wars. They didn’t doubt Malcolm looked decades younger than he was. They didn’t doubt he acted it, too, or the Nasts wouldn’t have been sending him on missions. But a serious threat to a trained operative? No.

“I said Malcolm was the best fighter in his time,” Nick continued. “These days that title goes to Clayton Danvers. Who faced Malcolm nine months ago. Clay will be the first to say it was a real fight. A true challenge.”

“Because Clayton had just finished dispatching a dozen Cabal security officers. And the only person Malcolm had fought was Elena, who had bested him before Clayton arrived.” Vanessa picked up her file and pretended to leaf through it. “I’m sure that’s the story you provided in our intake session. Elena turned Malcolm over to Clayton. They faced off. Clayton won, but he was interrupted by the arrival of the guards. That’s why you hired us. Not because Clayton couldn’t kill him, but because he missed his chance.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that two werewolves fought Malcolm and both agree he’s not a doddering old man—”

“We don’t expect him to be. But you hired us for a job, Mr. Sorrentino. I’m going to ask you to let us finish it.”

“If Tina goes after Malcolm, he will see her coming. If he sees her coming, he will kill her.”

“I disagree.”

“And you’re willing to stake your agent’s life on it?”

“She’s not going to confront him. We’ve established a fifty-yard guideline. Once she receives visual confirmation and provides photographic evidence, Malcolm Danvers is yours. Until then, we have a contract to complete.”

•••

Nick called Elena on his speakerphone. She was in her own car, on her way to get the twins from school.

He filled her in.

“I could go over her head,” he said when he finished. “But I’m not sure Rhys would do anything about it.”

“He won’t,” she said. “If she’s blocking you, it’s on his orders. Although Rhys might think he’s above stereotyping werewolves, he can’t quite shake the core assumptions. We may not be dumb brutes, but we have a little too much confidence in our ability to kick the ass of any other supernatural. We’re an insular group, distrustful of others, and while we’ve asked for help in this, it’s difficult to do so and we’re going to wrest back control the moment we can.” She paused and he heard her turn signal click as she took a corner. “All of which isn’t exactly untrue. But in this case, we’re not exaggerating the danger and we’re not jumping in too soon. But we can’t convince him of that.”

“So, your advice…?”

“If they want to take the risk, we can’t stop them. We’ll both feel sick if anything happens, but we have to trust that they know what they’re doing. They could even be right. Malcolm is the Pack’s bogeyman. Maybe we’ve built him up more than he deserves. You warned them. Now we hang tight and pray they don’t screw this up and lose him.”

A pause. An uncomfortable one, tension zinging along the line, as Nick pictured Elena fighting the impulse to add “Are you okay with that?” She was Alpha, and that meant no waffling, no democratic problem-solving. Her word was law. Which was fine with Nick. Elena struggled with it.

“Works for me,” he said, answering the question she couldn’t ask. He swore he heard a soft sigh of relief. 

“So, otherwise, what’s up there?” he asked, and they spent the rest of their mutual drives talking.

Four

Vanessa

Vanessa Callas had a routine. When the workday was done, she’d mix a gimlet, draw a steaming hot bath, light a candle and settle in with a book. Tonight, it was past nine and she was still sitting in her hotel room, cell phone by her elbow, trying not to gaze longingly at her novel and the hotel bar menu. The candle she’d brought sat on the table. She put her finger to the wick, lighting it, then snuffed it out. Lighting. Snuffing. Waiting.

She was waiting for two calls. One anticipated; one dreaded. The anticipated one was from Tina. After Nick Sorrentino left, she’d phoned and told Tina to take the night off. She was sending in Jayne tomorrow, and the two could tag-team confirmation on Malcolm Danvers. Tina hadn’t been pleased, but she’d promised to call once she was checked into her hotel. That was an hour ago.

The dreaded one was from Rhys. She hadn’t contacted him, but she was sure Nick had, probably the moment he got out the door. He would complain, and the boss would be pissed. Not because Rhys would want her to hand the case over to Nick. He was the one who’d forbidden it.

“If it was Elena or Clayton, sure,” he’d said. “I’d pass it off. They’re used to handling situations like this. But Nick? He’s used to
helping
them handle situations like this. Outside the Pack, Nick is known as Clayton Danvers’ friend or Antonio Sorrentino’s son. He has no reputation himself. He’s an omega wolf.”

The man Vanessa had been working with remotely had not seemed like an omega wolf. The man she’d met this afternoon absolutely did not seem like one. He’d taken charge just fine. But taking charge in a meeting and taking charge in the field were two different things.

“Bottom line,” Rhys had said. “We take the risks here, no matter how much he argues. He’s not only a Pack wolf. He’s the Alpha’s BFF, and if we get him killed, it’s a shit-storm of trouble for us.”

So Rhys wouldn’t call to give her crap for refusing Nick’s demand. He’d call because Vanessa hadn’t done her job. She hadn’t kept the client happy. And in this case, she’d had every intention of keeping Nick happy…and the memory of that, and the colossal fuck-up that ensued was why she really needed that gimlet. Maybe two.

Vanessa Callas did not take unnecessary risks. Not in her job. Not in her life. She was smart and she was careful, so smart and so careful that when she did decide to take a chance and do something crazy, she had no idea
how
, and usually ended up making a complete fool of herself. Like she’d done today.

Vanessa was in charge of five agents. Four of them were women, not because Rhys hired her to play den mother, but because after a few months on the job, female operatives usually requested her as their handler. She’d found the balance between boss and bossy older sister, and her agents took comfort in that. It was a closely-knit team, and overnight meetings often resembled sleepaway camp. Which is where Jayne, after a few glasses of wine, started gushing about Nick Sorrentino. Tina pounced on the next Nick update and got her chance, and then she was the one gushing, though it appeared she hadn’t been quite as successful as she’d let on.

Nick Sorrentino. The perfect one-night stand. A werewolf with a model-perfect face and athlete-perfect body. Young enough to have the energy for an all-nighter; old enough to realize he wasn’t the only one who should enjoy that all-nighter. Experienced and attentive. And a nice guy. That was, for the women, perhaps the most shocking part of the package. 

That’s when Vanessa made her decision. She was going to get some of that. God knows, she
needed
some of that. She didn’t even care to calculate how long it’d been.

Vanessa was thirty-eight. She’d come to work for Rhys seven years ago. Before that, she’d been with the FBI, zooming up the ranks with such single-mindedness that after a while she no longer even cared about the end goal, wasn’t even sure what her end goal was, only knew that it was higher than where she’d currently been. Then she met Rhys and realized work could be more interesting and more fulfilling, especially for a half-demon.

She worked her ass off, which hadn’t left much time for more than passing relationships. That seemed fine, until she hit thirty-four and the doctor said if she was planning to have children, she was reaching the end-stretch. At first, she’d been furious—who was he to presume she wanted kids? The more she thought about it, though, the more she realized she did want something, not necessarily children but the relationship they sprang from. An intimate bond with a man, as a lover and a companion.

As she was realizing that, someone introduced her to Roger. At twenty-five, she wouldn’t have given him a second look. There was a spectrum of elements that she looked for with any potential mate. Looks, yes. Success, yes. But also intelligence, wit and personality. Score on three out of five, and it didn’t really matter which three, you had a winner. Roger…Roger was perfectly adequate in all categories, outstanding in none. Vanessa had decided that was good enough. At least it was at thirty-five, when it seemed a woman was still expected to present an appealing package…and then be thrilled if it attracted anyone at all.

Roger was all for it, even if he did wish she’d drop a few pounds. She had—which was a struggle, given her figure—and she hadn’t even pointed out the fact that his spare tire was rapidly becoming tractor-sized. Though he had two kids from his previous marriage, he wanted more. She wasn’t set on them but wasn’t against them either, so she said sure. First they had to move in together. Then, on the moving day, he announced he’d found someone else. A twenty-five-year-old who was, it seemed, in possession of a more reliable set of ovaries.

That was the end of Roger.

She’d tried a few dates since, but quickly realized she was too angry and disillusioned. The problem was, if you aren’t dating, you aren’t getting sex. In the last few months, she’d twice found herself in hotel bars, seriously considering an invitation from some fellow traveler. Which meant the situation was growing dire—in her line of work, you know better than to ever go back to a stranger’s room. What she needed was a hookup that came with a “not a psycho” stamp of approval. What she needed was Nick Sorrentino.

So when Tina got a solid lead on Malcolm Danvers, Vanessa made an overdue business trip to New York and combined it with the chance to deliver this update to Nick herself. She’d bought a new dress—borderline vampy but revealing little more than curves—and tried not to regret those ten pounds she’d gained back post-Roger. She’d left her hair unpinned. She’d taken extra care with her makeup. Then she’d formulated a plan of seduction. Except, well, she had no experience with it. Still, from what Jayne and Tina suggested, Nick didn’t need hard-core wooing. Let him know you’re interested and, if he felt the same, you were set. She would let him know she was game, that she wasn’t a prude and was perfectly fine with casual sex…at least in theory. The easiest way to convey this message was to bring up Jayne and Tina. 

There was a moment, when she first saw Nick, that she doubted the wisdom of her plan. It was not because his bio photos didn’t do him justice. In person, Nick Sorrentino looked like he’d just stepped off an ad for Armani or Ferrari. Tall and slender, flawless olive skin, dark wavy hair, deep brown eyes…While he was fifty, being a werewolf, he looked a decade younger. Yet Vanessa was sure Nick Sorrentino would still turn heads when he
did
look fifty. And sixty. And probably even seventy.

But it wasn’t his looks that made her hesitate. It was him—his manner and his bearing and his demeanor, quiet and professional, polite and thoughtful. She hadn’t expected a smarmy playboy, but maybe, yes, a hint of that, an air that said he was a player and proud of it. When she didn’t detect any such sign, she realized her plan might be…unwise. But by then, it was too late. She’d played her hand and insulted him and made a fool of herself.

Now she waited for a call from Rhys, telling her their client was not pleased and he wasn’t sure what the hell she’d done, but she was off the case.

When the phone rang, she reached over with trepidation, then saw the caller ID. Mayfair Flowers. Tina Mayfair’s codename.

“I can’t imagine Detroit is such a tourist hotspot that it took you ninety minutes to find a hotel room,” Vanessa said on answering.

When silence returned, she continued, “Tell me you’re at a hotel…”

“I made visual confirmation,” Tina said. “Just as I was about to leave my post, he came out of his contact’s house. It was too dark for a distance photo so—”

“Did I tell you not to approach?” Vanessa said. “Did I
order
you to stand down?”

“But he was right there and it was dark enough for me to get closer for a photo.”

“So you got it?”

Silence. Then, “It…wasn’t as easy as it seemed. I took a photo, but it was still too far. I needed a better one. I’ve been following him—”

“No!” Vanessa said. “I don’t care if he’s twenty feet away standing under a streetlight. You back down now.
Now
.”

“I would but…”

Vanessa gripped the phone, heart rate picking up speed. “But what…?”

“I…It’s a stupid thing, and I feel like an idiot. Somehow, I lost him. I got myself into this blind alley.”

No, you didn’t get yourself there. Malcolm Danvers got you there.

“Get out now,” Vanessa said. “Whatever it takes. Just—”

A sharp intake of breath. Then a clatter, as if the phone had hit the pavement.

“Mayfair?” Vanessa called. “Mayfair!”

Another clatter. Then a male voice, “Hello?”

“Who is this?”

“Who is
this
? Did you lose your phone?” the man said, his voice soft. “Or did you lose something else? Yes, I believe you did. Such a shame, too. She’s not gone, though. Not yet. I could return her. Would you like that?”

Vanessa struggled not to snap a reply. “Yes, I would.”

“I thought so.”

The line went dead.

•••

Vanessa had two choices. Option one was to cover her ass—and her employer’s. Save them the humiliation of admitting they’d underestimated Malcolm Danvers. Call in backup, jump on the next plane to Detroit and pray she could get her agent back.

Option two? Well, option two would result in huge personal and professional embarrassment, and quite likely cost Vanessa a job she loved. It also gave Tina the best possible chance at survival.

Vanessa picked up the phone and dialed.