Kill Shot (14 page)

“I know, baby. I understand why you’ve made
the choices you have. You don’t have anything to justify to
anyone.”

“But I’m not the same person I was, Gabe.
You saw what happened back in Iran. I never know when it’s going to
happen. Anything can set it off—a group of schoolchildren walking
down the street, a family having a picnic. Making it through a job
without losing focus is rare. I know it’s dangerous, but I can’t
seem to find the strength to care.”

She longed to tell him what had finally sent
her over the edge, and the words were almost on the tip of her
tongue before he spoke.

“Do you know the reason I really left the
agency?”

Grace turned partially over onto her back so
she could face him. Her nipples rubbed against the soft mat of his
chest hair, and she found the familiarity of it bittersweet.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I stopped caring. I started taking
ops that were no more than suicide missions. I had to have that
element of danger that made me think,
this will be the one that
finally kills me
. It was the only way I could feel alive.”

“And now?”

“Forming The Collective has kept me busy.
I’ve worked eighteen-hour days for the past year so I wouldn’t have
to remind myself that I should be dead. To remind myself that I
can’t kill Tussad if I’m six feet under.”

“You have to promise me something, Gabe.”
Grace could tell by the stiffening of Gabe’s body and the hard look
that came into his eyes that he already knew what she was going to
say.

“No, I won’t do it. We go in together and we
come out together. Those are the rules.”

“No, Gabe. This is what the rest of my life
is meant for. I know it with certainty. I will gladly trade my life
for Tussad’s. You have to promise me that when it’s time to take
him out, that I go it alone. If I don’t make it, you have to swear
you won’t jeopardize your own life by trying to get me out. What
you do is too important to risk yourself.”

“Shut up, Grace. I’m not even going to have
this discussion. I’d never send anyone on my team on a suicide
mission.” Gabe sat up on the side of the bed and ran his fingers
through his hair. “We’re all worth too much, not just me. I swear
to you we’ll find a way to get to Tussad. It might take some time,
but we’ll get him. You’ve got to trust me on this.”

Gabe couldn’t mask the hurt in his eyes as
she hesitated in her response. She didn’t mean to hurt him. Didn’t
want to hurt him. But she wasn’t sure she was capable of trust
anymore after everything she’d been through.

He blew out an impatient breath and got out
of bed, rummaging through the closet for clean clothes. Her breath
caught at the beauty of his naked body.

“You were asleep before I got to tell you
before,” he said. “We’re headed to Boston. Ethan tracked Dr.
Standridge there.” Gabe pulled on underwear, fresh cargo pants, and
another black T-shirt while she stared at him in silence. “You’re
going to have to put your acting skills to the test once we get
there. Wear the green silk dress. Standridge won’t know what hit
him.”

Gabe buckled his high-tech watch around his
left wrist and looked at the time. Grace wished she knew the right
words to say. What she could do to do to make things right.

“Gabe,” she said, her voice barely a
whisper. “I thought you’d understand.”

He shook his head. “The only thing I
understand is that I love you and I don’t want you dead. We have a
couple more hours till we land. Try to get some more sleep.”

He closed the bedroom door behind him
quietly, and Grace winced at the amount of control he used to make
sure it shut quietly. There was no way in hell she’d be getting any
more sleep. Restless thoughts invaded her mind, and for the first
time in two years, her goals were being altered. She couldn’t
afford to let Gabe make her wish for things that weren’t possible.
She had a score to settle, and nothing would stand in her way. Not
even Gabe.

“Where the hell am I supposed to put my gun
in this dress?” Grace asked her reflection in the full-length
mirror that hung on the back of the bathroom door. She looked at
her Sig and then back at the miniscule dress in irritation.

The green silk plunged in the front and the
back. It fit like a second skin, and it barely covered all the
parts that needed to be covered. It emphasized all the curves she’d
thought she’d lost over the last couple of years, and it made her
breasts look spectacular. She was pretty sure that wearing this
dress on the street would be illegal in some states.

She slipped into a pair of black stilettos
that were going to make her feet scream with agony by the end of
the night, and she finally settled on dropping her Sig into an
oversized black handbag.

“I’ve got a problem here, Gabe,” she called
out.

He’d occupied himself by keeping as far away
from her as possible for the remainder of the flight. They’d each
needed a little space after what had happened between them. She
hadn’t been able to go back to sleep as he’d suggested, though.
She’d lain in bed with her eyes open, her mind a symphony of
memories overdubbed by Gabe’s words.

It didn’t take her long to come to the
realization that leaning on Gabe and trusting him again was asking
for more heartache. He would always see the final outcome of any
mission in his head first—decide on the right course to take and
act on it—before any of the rest of the team had a chance to catch
up. It was a gift he’d always possessed. If Gabe said a mission
would be successful, then it would be. Plain and simple. He could
blend in anywhere, a chameleon for every climate and any
country.

Gabe had promised her that Tussad would be
taken down. But he’d promised her things before. He’d promised he’d
love her and their daughter forever and protect them both. There
were some promises that were just impossible to keep.

The quick knock on the door gave her enough
time to blank any emotions from her face.

“What’s the…” Gabe didn’t finish his
sentence, and the look on his face was enough to make the woman in
her purr with pride. He circled his finger, and she obligingly
turned around.

“Jesus Christ, woman. I can’t let you go out
in public like that.” He took a step toward her with his hands
reaching out to her before he caught himself. “I’ve seen every inch
of your body, and I had no idea you had curves like that.”

“I’m just following orders, sir. You told me
to wear the green silk. But I do have a small problem as to where I
should put my weapons. This dress is so tight that I can’t even
wear underwear, much less a thigh holster.”

Gabe’s eyes darkened with desire, and he
started toward her with predatory steps. Her heart pounded in her
chest, and her nipples were sensitive against the silk as they
hardened. She stood her ground as he closed in on her and moaned as
his calloused hands touched her thigh just where flesh and fabric
met.

He skimmed his fingers over her hips, across
the dip of her stomach, and along the mounds of her breasts before
tangling his fingers in her braid, all the while never breaking eye
contact with her. God, he had such beautiful eyes—streaks of silver
shot through deep blue. She was powerless to look away.

“You should wear it down.” He tugged at the
end of the braid and ran his fingers through it until it hung in
curls over her shoulders. He rubbed the ends between his fingers.
“It’s like fire, but cool to the touch.”

She waited for the animal she saw inside of
him to take control, for him to press her back against the wall and
take her with all the want and desire that vibrated off his body.
But just as his lips skimmed across hers, no more than a taste, the
shutters came down over his eyes, and his face was a hard mask of
determination.

The job came first. Just like always.

“This is going to be up close and personal,”
he said. “We need Standridge alive enough to talk for a while.
We’ve got to destroy his research and test formulas. Just get us
inside his home, and we’ll decide where to go from there.”

“He can’t be left alive, Gabe.”

“I know. But I figure after one look at you
in that dress, he’ll drop dead of a heart attack.”

“That would be the easiest way. Blood stains
are hell to get out of silk.”

***

Grace had never been drunk in her life.
She’d never liked the idea of being completely out of control. But
she’d seen her fair share of fools stumbling around, so she figured
she could act the part sufficiently enough.

She gathered her bag and the half-full
champagne bottle close and rang the doorbell at Allen Standridge’s
Back Bay home. It was a couple of minutes before she heard the
shuffle of feet and felt his gaze as he looked at her through the
peephole. She took a quick slug of champagne, wobbled unevenly on
her heels, and rang the doorbell several times again.

The door opened slowly, and Grace got her
first look at Dr. Allen Standridge. He was no prize, that was for
damn sure, but she played her part to perfection.

“Ollie, baby,” she crooned, throwing her
arms around his considerable bulk. She swallowed the gag at his
stench and turned it into a hiccup instead. “Thanks for inviting
me. It’s so nice to finally meet you. Awesome house. Do you have a
pool?”

Grace left him at the door with his mouth
hanging open and stumbled inside. The place was cluttered with
papers and empty coffee cups. Clothes hung haphazardly over the
furniture, and empty potato chip bags were stuffed into the pocket
on the side of his recliner.

“Where is everybody? This isn’t much of a
party.”

“Wh…who’s Ollie?” Standridge finally
stuttered out. “I think you’ve got the wrong house, lady.”

“Nope, I wrote it down. Where’d I put it?”
She smiled drunkenly and clunked her bag down on the table, where
she could get to her gun easily, and then fished down the front of
her dress for the tiny scrap of paper hidden there. Standridge
swallowed audibly as her fingers dipped inside her cleavage. God,
men were so easy.

“Here it is.” Grace waved the little piece
of paper under his nose and intentionally dropped it to the ground.
“Oops! Let me get that, honey.” She grabbed hold of his arm and
slithered down to the floor to pick it up. She’d be damned if she
was going to bend over and let her ass hang out.

She did her best to entice him without
having to touch him too much. Gabe was going to owe her big for
this. Standridge’s hands shook as he took the paper from her. He
couldn’t take his eyes off her cleavage and was barely able to
unfold it.

He glanced at the paper. “Hmm, this is the
right address.” He licked his lips nervously. “But as you can see,
I’m not having a party tonight.”

“Awww.” The whine in her voice was starting
to grate on her nerves. She ran her fingers up over his shoulder
and mussed his hair. “My friends must have written it down wrong.
But I have a better idea.”

“You do?”

“You look like a fun guy, Ollie.”

“A…Allen. My name’s Allen,” he said in a
rush of Frito breath that made her want to recoil.

“Allen is a very sexy name.” She grabbed him
by both arms and led him into the house, trying not to trip over
her feet in the ridiculous shoes. “What do you say we have our own
party? Just the two of us?”

She took another swig from the champagne
bottle and then handed it to him. His eyes were glazed with lust,
and he was hers to do with as she pleased.

“Just the two of us?” he parroted. “Is this
a joke? Did Kimball put you up to this?”

“Now, Allen, you’re going to hurt my
feelings.” She pouted prettily and pushed him back into one of his
dining room chairs. It was made of sturdy oak and had armrests. It
was exactly what she needed. “Do I look like a joke to you?”

He landed with an oomph, and his face was
practically buried in her cleavage. “N…no. No joke. Our own
party.”

“Do you know what my favorite game is to
play at a party?” Grace asked, reaching for her bag and digging
around inside. She pulled out a black scarf slowly and ran it
across Standridge’s overheated flesh. He was panting like a
racehorse, and Grace figured she’d better tone it down a bit before
he really did keel over from a heart attack. He was incapable of
speech at this point. Sweat beaded on his upper lip, and his face
was flushed an unhealthy shade of red.

“Have you ever been tied up, Allen?”

He shook his head no and watched, eyes
mesmerized, as she tied his wrist to the arm of the chair. She took
another scarf out of her bag and did the same to his other
wrist.

“Do you know how hot it makes me to have
someone completely at my mercy?” His breath turned into a wheeze as
she knelt at his feet and tied each ankle to the chair leg. She
stood up and took one final scarf from her bag. “What about you,
Allen? How hot does it make you to know that I can do whatever I
want to you?”

Grace trailed the scarf over his shoulder as
she walked behind him. Her mouth grimaced in irritation as she
pulled the scarf over his eyes and noticed his fat head almost made
tying it impossible.

“I c—c—c…can’t see.” The panic was ripe in
his voice, but Grace knew he couldn’t break the bonds.

“No, you can’t,” she whispered against his
ear. “But everything you feel will be enhanced. Just relax, Allen.
You’re in good hands. Are you ready to get started?”

“Yesss.”

Grace kicked her shoes off and went to the
kitchen door where Gabe waited. He rolled his eyes at her as he
slipped past her and made his way over to Allen Standridge.

“Hello? Hello?” Standridge called out. “Are
you still here?”

Gabe kicked out his foot and pushed the
chair over. All three hundred pounds of Allen Standridge went
straight back and landed like a ton of bricks on the kitchen floor.
The air went out of him with a
whooft,
and he lay so still
Grace was afraid he might be dead after all.