Hell on the Heart (15 page)

“Which is worse? For her to choose
familya
and never find happiness or for her to choose an outsider and break my heart.” Saying the words aloud made him realize his problem. He worried for his daughter, but he also worried for himself. When had he become so selfish?

Luca grinned and slapped his knee. “So, you’ve made your decision. What else is bothering you?”

Damn. He had made his decision, but didn’t want to face it. Cezi was a woman, no longer a child. Much as it would pain him, he must prepare to let her go. Which brought up another issue. “Nadya wants to give her the marital talk.”

A look of outrage crossed his brother’s face. “Hell, no.” Luca jumped to his feet and stomped back to the wet bar. This time he opened the small refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of private label Russian Vodka, which he poured into two shot glasses. “That talk is nothing more than a long list of what not to do in bed. Those old women harp at young girls, telling them their body is unclean. Sex is only for procreation. Blah. Blah. Blah. Anything beyond the missionary position is evil.”

Nicholae laughed, not disagreeing, as he remembered how sneaky he’d been each time he tried to convince his wife to try something new. “And then they’re outraged their husbands are unfaithful.”

Luca set the liquor on the desk and plopped back in the chair. “Go back to the Indian. Do you like him?”

“He’s strong enough to protect Cezi.”

“But his face,” Luca gestured with the back of his fingers drawing them along his cheek physically tracing the arc of the scars, “doesn’t that bother her?”

Nicolae nodded and raised his glass in a silent toast. Helping a daughter find happiness was what families did. They’d have to be careful. If Cezi thought she was being pushed, she’d balk for sure.

Eli drove, following a Google map Adam had provided. Cain tapped the dash repeatedly banging out a drum solo that would have made any professional drummer proud. Delight practically had him crowing when Eli gritted his teeth and emitted a low level warning rumble.

“What? You got something to say?”

“No.”

Hostility ran high. Either due to their screw up last Friday or because both hated “special assignments” like this one. They had picked up young boys before, but Cain found it harder to wrestle his demons when children were involved. Cain never touched another male. Thinking about it made his skin crawl.

The skate park was fairly deserted on a late Wednesday afternoon, just as they’d anticipated. In Bryant’s blog, he had detailed the best time to skate and his photos made it easy to tell him apart from the other two boys roughly his age.

Eli and Cain watched from the limo. Their kid had some skills, which was why he’d been chosen.

Cain moved inside the park to a bench seat both for a better view and so the boy could see him. He applauded wildly when a trick went well and yelled encouragement.

As expected with an audience the tricks became more elaborate. It was only a question of time before the fall came. When it did, Cain rushed into the concrete pit. The boy lay on his back, the wind knocked out of him, but his eyes were open and he was conscious.

“Where do you hurt?” Cain knelt beside the injured boy.

Silent tears streamed down the boy’s cheeks, leaving a wet streak through the sweat and dirt. “Ankle.”

His clothes were well worn. His jeans were white at the stress points and tattered at the cuffs while his shirt boasted a rip in the neck seam. The puffy ankle had already doubled in size.

Cain untied the boy’s dog-eared sneaker to ease the pressure. “Let’s get you to the emergency room.” At the panicked look in the child’s eyes, he added, “Don’t worry. I’ll pay for it.”

He hoisted the boy into his arms. “We’ll call your mother on the way.”

The look of terror returned as the frantic child shook his head and twisted to scramble to safety. “No, don’t tell. She’ll make me stop.”

Cain chuckled, tightening his grip. “All right then. It’ll be our little secret. But you may have to lay low for a few days before you can ride again.”

The boy acquiesced and Cain carried him to the limo. Before laying him across the backseat, he checked the location of his friends. Both had returned to skating, totally uninterested in events fifty feet from them.

“I’ll ride up front so you have plenty of room,” he told the lad, closing the door.

Fifteen minutes later the limo pulled to the curb at the edge of the University of Chicago campus. “Now that he’s out, let’s check that ankle.” A broken bone and the kid would be worthless to them, but a sprain or even a hairline fracture could be disguised well enough.

He opened the backdoor to let the gas escape and slapped on a mask to avoid breathing in lingering fumes before stepping inside. It would be impossible to tell without an x-ray but the ankle didn’t feel broken. Eli passed a large first-aid kit through the window. Cain wrapped the ankle in an elastic bandage. On the plane they could pack it on ice.

Cain closed the kit and tossed the mask to the floor pleased this job had gone off without a hitch. They’d be in Mexico in a few hours. He shoved the rear door shut and sauntered to the front door.

That’s when he saw her not thirty feet beyond the car.

She looked exactly like he’d pictured her. Black curly hair danced in the wind. No dress, but pants that hugged her slender thighs. The bounce of her steps and sway of her hips combined to issue an erotic taunt. Catch me, take me. I’m yours.

She cut across the open square, surrounded by buildings. A voice called out and she raised her arm in greeting, but scurried on alone. The chase was on.

Cain ripped open the car door. “Find a private place, throw the kid in the trunk. Meet me back here as fast as you can.”

“Wha…?”

“Do it.” Cain slammed the door and took off at a sprint after her. Was she following him? Why was she here? His little thief joined other students milling around the steps of a stone and pillar building. She waited for him.

The pit of his stomach churned when she vanished from sight, but reemerged a moment later when a taller boy moved. Peek-a-boo. I see you. Cain slowed and swallowed to catch his breath. She pretended to ignore him while conversing with another woman.

He’d told her he was coming. She hadn’t been able to wait. Yet, still she teased him, pretending like she didn’t know he was there. Casually he ran a hand through his hair and smiled.

You’re mine, little thief.

“Peata?” The name the older man had called her, tattooed in his mind. Cain placed a hand on her shoulder, baring his teeth in a partial smile. He’d enjoyed the game and so had she. But now she’d stopped running. She was ready, waiting for him.

The last time he’d seen her she’d been on her knees eager to accommodate him. Disappointment had ridden her hard when her family showed up to separate them. Knowing, like he did, they were meant to be together.

His little thief turned. A smile lit her blue eyes and her freckled nose crinkled. “Do I know you?”

The pretty features belonged to another woman. Cain swallowed, then bit his inner cheek and flexed his fists to keep his reactions in check. “Forgive me.” He bowed his head slightly in apology. “I thought you were someone else.”

He stepped back, wanting to tilt his head back and howl in rage, needing to be away from everyone. Now. But as he stepped backward, the trickster stepped forward. “Who were you expecting?” Her smile invited him to remain, but the need to leave pushed him on.

“A friend. From the back you look like her.” He walked in the direction of the limo only to discover the woman had fallen into step beside him.

“Perhaps we could be friends,” she suggested. The back of her hand brushed against his and she ran her hand up the inside of his arm in a possessive movement.

“Don’t you have a class?”

She shrugged and tossed her head back to laugh. The obsidian curls caught the light and the scent of her seductive cologne snaked out to drag him closer. “My friends can take notes.” Her voice was throaty, eager. He studied her mouth covered with sparkling pink lip-gloss and watched her tongue dart out, tempting him. Her blue eyes boldly returned his stare, daring him to do his worse.

Gathering a handful of her thick locks, he sniffed them like a dog. It wasn’t Peata’s scent, but it enticed well enough. Perhaps they could be friends. And more.

What was he doing? This girl wanted to take the little thief’s place. So be it. Maybe he’d satiate himself with her and in doing so eradicate the other woman from his memories.

“You have no idea how much I would like to be your friend.” He smiled that slow promising look he’d practiced in the mirror, the one that made young girls swoon. His skills didn’t fail him now. She practically panted, more than ready.

“My car’s down the hill. Let’s take a ride. I love Chicago on nights like this, don’t you?” He reached out and stroked the back of his fingers against her cheek.

A look of conquest flickered over her features. So she’d thought she be the one calling the shots. He bit back a laugh of triumph and ran his tongue against the sharp underside of the top row of his teeth and imagined sinking them into her skin. Raking his eyes appreciatively over her body, he was delighted when she preened under his scrutiny.

“Sweetheart, you are the perfect antidote.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her toward the waiting limo.

“My name’s Sophia.”

“’Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m a man of wealth and taste,’” he half-sang the Rolling Stones song and noticed she didn’t appear to know the words to Sympathy for the Devil. As he opened the limo’s rear door, he bowed in a courtly manner. “’I’ve been around for a long, long year. Stole many a man’s soul and faith…’”

# # #

Armadillo Creek

Cezi leaned against the dock’s gas pump and dangled one bare foot in the cool water. Sunrise streaked the cloudless blue sky with golden shafts of light. Too early for the busy lake to be operating, she attempted to reign in her fears.

For the past two nights, Cain’s face had appeared to her in her dreams. Watching, waiting, teasing. Overblown in size and blurred in form, the eyes hovered above her marking her every move. She woke each day with sweat beading on her face and bile lodged in her throat, the last thing she remembered were his lips curling into a sneer as he vanished in the light of the day.

Poppy told her to come up with a plan, but her mind was so distraught that she lacked the ability to piece a coherent sentence together, much less a plan of action.

She didn’t miss Agent John Stillwater. She didn’t. How could she miss someone she only knew for a single day? How could she be attracted to a man who hadn’t even kissed her?

But she’d dreamed of kissing him. And a whole lot more. In her sleep his smell enticed her, the corded muscles in his arms surrounded her and those chiseled lips wanted hers. Yet, the moment things started to get good, John’s face would morph into Cain’s, scorning her nostrils and stinging her flesh.

She’d jerk herself awake, trying not to scream.

In a couple of hours the morning dew would have dried and Armadillo Creek would be up and about. Work could finally begin. Today she planned to install motion-activated video cameras at every potential airplane-landing site she’d found. If she had any say in it at all, Cain would not be taking her by surprise.

She organized the location data John had given her yesterday. Today, she’d work on finding a pattern. They weren’t smarter than she was and they weren’t throwing darts at a map. But there were so many places to choose, how would she be able to narrow it down?

# # #

Mexico

The rich cherry-wood den with the massive Italian marble fireplace served as a study-in-contrast to the rest of the house. Cain suspected it held a clue to Adam’s past, but in five years his boss’s previous life remained a mystery.

The same could not be said of Adam. He recruited, trained and supervised the small staff. But more importantly Adam knew each employee’s secret including real names and why each was prepared to live off the grid. Cain hadn’t seen or talked to a former friend or family member since the night he’d been recruited almost six years ago. Hadn’t missed them either. He never looked back.

 Adam had made Cain rich, but at a price. Cain suppressed any personal opinions or disagreements. Those who’d challenged Adam disappeared. The story was always similar. The men quit and returned home. But none had ever packed a bag or removed a single personal possession. Once someone was gone, his name was never spoken. No need to poke about in other’s business.

Cain had perfected compliancy, echoing the party line with fervor. Never once had his performance been called into question. Until today.

“You jeopardized our entire operation. You endangered a child worth a half-million to us. And for what? A piece of ass?”

Adam ran the heavy fireplace poker between his thick fingers. His cold gray eyes were almost silver as they took Cain’s measure. Cain stared back, willing himself not to blink, fearing the other man wouldn’t hesitate to take a vicious swing and Jackson Pollock his brains all over the ball-and-claw foot mahogany table that, according to rumor, had once belonged to Thomas Jefferson.